The Tormented Minds of today are not the products of our tormented world. Rather, it is our upset minds that have upset the world. Man, by attempting to exist either apart from God or defiant of God, has made the world as delirious as his own mind is neurotic. The crisis today is so deep in its causes that all social and political attempts to deal with it are bound to be as ineffective as talcum powder in curing jaundice. It is man who has to be remade first; then society will be remade by the restored new man. The dictators that have been cast upon the shores of the twentieth and twenty-first century are not the creators of the disorder, but rather its creatures.
They are symptoms, not causes, of the universal breakdown of a moral order in the heart of humanity. The constant refusal of man to allow a supra historic Divine Power to break into his closed mind is the pride that prepares catastrophe. Most people are intuitively aware that no change other than a spiritual change will be enough: The extreme sensitiveness and ready anger of those who urge revolutions against society and morality as their remedy are proof of the insecurity of their very position. The violence of their opposition to all criticism is a sure sign of the defenselessness of their own position; even they suspect that mankind stands less in need of revolution than redemption.
Humanity cannot redeem itself by its own human reason or power; but human beings can use both reason and power in cooperation with Divine Grace. This is what a person does when he and she becomes converted. It is time now to talk of the effect such a conversion has on the soul. The soul is now open to the working of Sanctifying Grace, which elevates our nature so that we become something we were not naturally - partakers of the Divine nature Who descended to the level of our mortality to make us share His Life.
This new grace, which adds Divine to human affiliation so that we become Children of God as well as children of our parents, is not extrinsic to the soul or mere imputation of the merit of Christ. There is a reality in the soul that was not there before - a created reality that comes directly from God Himself, a reality we ourselves cannot merit in the strict sense of the term. That is why it is called a grace; it is gratis,or free.
One effect of grace is that Our Divine Lord is no longer extrinsic to us, as He is for those who think of Him as only a historical figure Who lived 2000 years ago. If Our Divine Savior had remained on earth, they would be right. He would be only an example to be copied, a voice to be heard. But once He ascended into Heaven and sent His Spirit to us, then He ceased to be a model to be copied and became a Life to be lived.
Though we are more interested here in pointing out the psychological effects of grace on the soul than its many theological effects, two of these are too important to be omitted. These are the Divine Presence in the soul after Baptism and the incorporation of the individual into the Mystical Body of Christ. "Presence of God" is a phrase very loosely used today to cover anything from the Pantheism of the Lake poets to the vague sentimentalism of the Romanticist, who likes the woods because he "feels" God there. God is, indeed, present in the universe in many various ways, as any artist can be present in various ways, for example, in his paintings, as its creator; in a museum, as a representative of culture; and in his children, as a father. God is present in the whole universe as a Cause, and in this sense He is in the flowers and the trees. But a far more intimate presence was evidenced in the Incarnation, where God appeared as man in the heart of a new humanity that was to become His new Body.
The Incarnation (in the Hypostatic Union) made God man. The union of grace and nature makes us defied. As the actions of Jesus Christ were both Divine and human, so those of a person in the state of grace are God-like, being performed by both God and man; these acts are meritorious of heaven. The presence of God in such a soul is not a mere sentimental manner of speech, but a real possession. Because we have become adopted children of God by being born of Him, we now live by the Spirit of Christ. "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba, Father" - Rom. 8:15 - The body has now become the Temple of God. "Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own." - 1Cor. 6:19 -
Christ is the Head of such sanctified souls, and they stand in relation to Him as members of His Body, "And he has subjected all things under his feet, and has made the fullness of him who is filled all in all." - Eph. 1:22-23 - The relation between Christ and His Body, the Church, was said by Christ Himself to be like that of the vine and its branches: "Yet a little while: and the world sees me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." - John 14:19-20 -
"Now you are clean by reason of the world which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine; so neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches: he that abides in me, I in him, the same bears much fruit: for without me you can do nothing." - John 15:3-5 -
Jacques B. Bossuet has expressed this intimate relation of Christ with His Body, the Church, by describing the latter as the "prolongation of the Incarnation." Christ can have only one Body; therefore there cannot be many churches. Any church founded this morning or yesterday afternoon or even a hundred years ago is too remote from Pentecost to be Christ's Body. The Body and the Soul, the Church and the Holy Spirit - these must have been allied from the beginning.
The unity among the members of that Body cannot be a vague and undetermined association that any member is free to change, any more than a human body can be changeable, sometimes having one eye and one ear or no heart and seven lungs. The unity of the faithful in Christ's Body is not organizational, although an organization is necessary, and although those who admire the Church for its unity of belief and faith and liturgy attribute this to its organization.
The Church is, rather, an organism. As a human body is one because it has one soul, one visible head, and one invisible mind, so the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is one because it has one soul - the Holy Spirit of God - one visible Head - Peter and his successors - and one invisible Head - Christ. As Christ took upon Himself a human nature from the womb of His Mother (overshadowed by the Holy Spirit) so He took from the womb of humanity (overshadowed by the Pentecostal Spirit) His Mystical Body, the Church. Christ teaches through His Body - therefore, His teaching is infallible. He governs through His Body - therefore, the authority is Divine. He sanctifies through His Body - therefore, the sanctification accomplished in the Sacraments does not depend on the personality or character of those who administer the Sacraments.
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible is certainly the most remarkable "Book of Love" in the world. It records the greatest love story ever written - God's unconditional love for us.
Yes, God loved the world so much
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life. - John 3:16
It is not easy to die even for a good man - though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. - Rom. 5:7-8 -
This is the love I mean:
not our love for God,
but God's love for us when he sent his Son
to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. - 1John 4:10 -
Love is one of God's attributes; it is also an essential part of His nature. "God is Love," 1John 4:8,16 declares. Love does not come to an end. Such Spirit inspired love never fails but always flourishes.
The Old Testament demands love from man to God, and from peoples to peoples, but it gives priority to God's love for human beings. All other loves derive from this one, but the word often used for God's love can also be translated as "mercy" - Psalms 103 -
In the New Testament, Jesus preaches love for God's, love for enemies as well as for neighbors. Love always involves a movement outward from the self, a movement of identification with the other. That is why love can take so many forms without changing its essential nature. Love for a suffering human being expresses itself as a bearing or sharing of the other's affliction. Love for an enemy expresses itself as the active pursuit of reconciliation. Love for God expresses itself as awe and obedience. Love between a man and a woman [male and female] can express itself through sexual union. In all cases union is the theme, and in each case love is the richer and the stronger if it recognizes its kinship with the rest.
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end. - 1Cor. 13:4-8 -
In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. - 1Cor. 13:13 -
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Yes, God loved the world so much
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life. - John 3:16
It is not easy to die even for a good man - though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die - but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. - Rom. 5:7-8 -
This is the love I mean:
not our love for God,
but God's love for us when he sent his Son
to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. - 1John 4:10 -
Love is one of God's attributes; it is also an essential part of His nature. "God is Love," 1John 4:8,16 declares. Love does not come to an end. Such Spirit inspired love never fails but always flourishes.
The Old Testament demands love from man to God, and from peoples to peoples, but it gives priority to God's love for human beings. All other loves derive from this one, but the word often used for God's love can also be translated as "mercy" - Psalms 103 -
In the New Testament, Jesus preaches love for God's, love for enemies as well as for neighbors. Love always involves a movement outward from the self, a movement of identification with the other. That is why love can take so many forms without changing its essential nature. Love for a suffering human being expresses itself as a bearing or sharing of the other's affliction. Love for an enemy expresses itself as the active pursuit of reconciliation. Love for God expresses itself as awe and obedience. Love between a man and a woman [male and female] can express itself through sexual union. In all cases union is the theme, and in each case love is the richer and the stronger if it recognizes its kinship with the rest.
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end. - 1Cor. 13:4-8 -
In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. - 1Cor. 13:13 -
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Monday, April 16, 2012
People of faith is not that who is credulous but rather the one who is faithful. Firmness is at the heart of faith, but human firmness of this kind comes from a relationship with the ever constant God. His steadfast love is the ground of our steadfast faith and action.
Most people nowadays distinguish between belief - [by which they mean ideas they hold to be true,] trust - [by which they mean the confidence they feel in someone else,] cynic - [by which they mean one who believes all human action has selfish motives.] But faith is not only belief in the truth, it is a religious conviction as well, that is, perhaps some may say, "believing where we cannot prove."
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, however, knows nothing of these distinctions. Both the Old and the New Testament have one word to convey what we meant by "belief," by "trust," and by "faith" - except that the scriptural/biblical word never really means "believing where we cannot prove" if this means that faith disregards known fact.
Scriptural/Biblical faith includes believing things to be true; it includes an attitude of trust toward another person; and it includes a way of seeing things visible in a context of things invisible. This last, however, is not at all the same thing as giving intellectual assent to propositions for which there is no supporting evidence. This faith is hypothesis, and its strength is proportionate to the extent to which it rings true when all known facts are looked at in its light.
Abraham is the pioneer of faith, not just because he accepted the truth of God's promises, but because he resolute acted on them. Jehoshaphat exhorted his army both to believe in and to believe. His story also dramatizes what is involved in faith: God's love evoking a resolute response in both action and worship.
In the New Testament, the mission of Jesus opens with a challenge to believe the Good News that He brings. Since He was Himself at the heart of this Good News, a personal relationship was involved. Epilepsy was always described at that time as 'being in the grip of an evil spirit' and it was the father of an epileptic boy who demonstrated the many sides of this personal relationship. He trusted, he believed, he also trusted Jesus with his unbelief. That is faith putting the whole self, doubts included, into the hands of another.
Saint Paul sees faith as the very core of a right relationship with God. He finds evidence for this in the Old Testament - especially in the texts that treat faith as an entry into righteousness - but for apostle Paul, it is the coming of Jesus that has made it possible to put aside any thought of getting right with God by fulfilling His Law, and to substitute a trusting relationship with God's representative. It is this union through faith that justifies - that is, puts right.
The comprehensive significance of the term "faith" as the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible uses it is hardly recoverable. We would probably be wise to accept the variety of terms in our current vocabulary and to use a number of them to cover different aspects of the subject. For instance, when people speak of identifying with some person or cause, they may be expressing something of what the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible would call faith. And it is indeed true that to some degree people are what they identify with. To identify with righteousness is to place yourself in a position where you can be treated as righteous - at any rate by a judge who looks at your intentions rather than your achievements.
Inevitably, the various shades of faith do run into one another. The trusting, loving, admiring attitude of "identification with" leads to a personal relationship, to commitment, and to action. All of these involve the formulating of ideas about what is true: believing in leads to believing that this, that, or the other is in fact true. But the believing in is always larger than the believing that, and there is room within it for change to the better and variety in the matter of ideas. Believing can include much uncertainty and agnosticism. It can even embrace much unbelief.
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Most people nowadays distinguish between belief - [by which they mean ideas they hold to be true,] trust - [by which they mean the confidence they feel in someone else,] cynic - [by which they mean one who believes all human action has selfish motives.] But faith is not only belief in the truth, it is a religious conviction as well, that is, perhaps some may say, "believing where we cannot prove."
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible, however, knows nothing of these distinctions. Both the Old and the New Testament have one word to convey what we meant by "belief," by "trust," and by "faith" - except that the scriptural/biblical word never really means "believing where we cannot prove" if this means that faith disregards known fact.
Scriptural/Biblical faith includes believing things to be true; it includes an attitude of trust toward another person; and it includes a way of seeing things visible in a context of things invisible. This last, however, is not at all the same thing as giving intellectual assent to propositions for which there is no supporting evidence. This faith is hypothesis, and its strength is proportionate to the extent to which it rings true when all known facts are looked at in its light.
Abraham is the pioneer of faith, not just because he accepted the truth of God's promises, but because he resolute acted on them. Jehoshaphat exhorted his army both to believe in and to believe. His story also dramatizes what is involved in faith: God's love evoking a resolute response in both action and worship.
In the New Testament, the mission of Jesus opens with a challenge to believe the Good News that He brings. Since He was Himself at the heart of this Good News, a personal relationship was involved. Epilepsy was always described at that time as 'being in the grip of an evil spirit' and it was the father of an epileptic boy who demonstrated the many sides of this personal relationship. He trusted, he believed, he also trusted Jesus with his unbelief. That is faith putting the whole self, doubts included, into the hands of another.
Saint Paul sees faith as the very core of a right relationship with God. He finds evidence for this in the Old Testament - especially in the texts that treat faith as an entry into righteousness - but for apostle Paul, it is the coming of Jesus that has made it possible to put aside any thought of getting right with God by fulfilling His Law, and to substitute a trusting relationship with God's representative. It is this union through faith that justifies - that is, puts right.
The comprehensive significance of the term "faith" as the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible uses it is hardly recoverable. We would probably be wise to accept the variety of terms in our current vocabulary and to use a number of them to cover different aspects of the subject. For instance, when people speak of identifying with some person or cause, they may be expressing something of what the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible would call faith. And it is indeed true that to some degree people are what they identify with. To identify with righteousness is to place yourself in a position where you can be treated as righteous - at any rate by a judge who looks at your intentions rather than your achievements.
Inevitably, the various shades of faith do run into one another. The trusting, loving, admiring attitude of "identification with" leads to a personal relationship, to commitment, and to action. All of these involve the formulating of ideas about what is true: believing in leads to believing that this, that, or the other is in fact true. But the believing in is always larger than the believing that, and there is room within it for change to the better and variety in the matter of ideas. Believing can include much uncertainty and agnosticism. It can even embrace much unbelief.
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Sunday, April 15, 2012
In the Old Testament, the psalmist and the prophets speak of God as hope of Israel. It is when the situation seems hopeless that prophet Jeremiah addresses God as 'Hope.' But the hope is not so much an experience that isolates and examines as it is an essential element in its whole attitude to the future. Hope is built into the structure of the Old Testament faith and experience. Significantly, when events shake that basic confidence in what lies ahead, the Old Testament remedy is to look at what lies behind.
Hope is the precondition of effective action. The farmer exemplifies it when he sows his seed, especially if he is hungry and weeps to see the seed corn thrown onto the ground when he would much rather eat it. Without hope based on past experience he would sow nothing.
The New Testament hope was focused on a day of fulfillment beyond the range of world history, but the fact that their hope looked beyond death did not make New Testament Christians indifferent to the present and the future of the world we know. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was, for them, evidence that the end of Israel's long road was in sight, but the Spirit of God reached back to them from the risen Christ to sustain them in the continuing pilgrimage. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of hope as an anchor that is fastened securely in the invisible world.
Indeed, the purpose that constitutes the ground of all human hope is one which transcends even humanity. Nature itself is caught up in the great forward movement. This does not lead to a belief in the inevitability of human improvement. It does mean that even human failure and suffering cannot frustrate the purpose with which we are invited to identify ourselves through faith, hope, and love - Saint Paul's list of the three things which endure/last.
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible does not say that what you fear will not happen. It does say that, even if the worst happens, there is beyond that a good that will be wrung from it and in which you will find the true fulfillment of your hope. Oddly, this does not made peoples resigned to the threatening evil. On the contrary, it gives them more heart to fight against it. Hope is a better spur than desperation.
Our generation, threatened by vast and destructive forces, is often said to be particularly in need of hope. But hope cannot be had just because it would be a useful contribution to mental stability. Nor can it be had on its own. Faith and love are inseparable from it, and they must be used to dig deeper into events and experience in order to find the underlying purposes with which hope can be aligned. Hope is not optimism. It is realism - but realism on a scale large enough to encompass the possibility of tragedy.
So far then we have seen that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. - Rom. 5:1-5 -
But as I say, we must hope to be saved since we are not saved yet - it is something we must wait for with patience. - Rom. 8:25 -
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away because it is being kept for you in the heavens. - 1Peter 1:3-4 -
Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. - 1Peter 1:13 -
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Hope is the precondition of effective action. The farmer exemplifies it when he sows his seed, especially if he is hungry and weeps to see the seed corn thrown onto the ground when he would much rather eat it. Without hope based on past experience he would sow nothing.
The New Testament hope was focused on a day of fulfillment beyond the range of world history, but the fact that their hope looked beyond death did not make New Testament Christians indifferent to the present and the future of the world we know. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was, for them, evidence that the end of Israel's long road was in sight, but the Spirit of God reached back to them from the risen Christ to sustain them in the continuing pilgrimage. Hebrews 6:19 speaks of hope as an anchor that is fastened securely in the invisible world.
Indeed, the purpose that constitutes the ground of all human hope is one which transcends even humanity. Nature itself is caught up in the great forward movement. This does not lead to a belief in the inevitability of human improvement. It does mean that even human failure and suffering cannot frustrate the purpose with which we are invited to identify ourselves through faith, hope, and love - Saint Paul's list of the three things which endure/last.
The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible does not say that what you fear will not happen. It does say that, even if the worst happens, there is beyond that a good that will be wrung from it and in which you will find the true fulfillment of your hope. Oddly, this does not made peoples resigned to the threatening evil. On the contrary, it gives them more heart to fight against it. Hope is a better spur than desperation.
Our generation, threatened by vast and destructive forces, is often said to be particularly in need of hope. But hope cannot be had just because it would be a useful contribution to mental stability. Nor can it be had on its own. Faith and love are inseparable from it, and they must be used to dig deeper into events and experience in order to find the underlying purposes with which hope can be aligned. Hope is not optimism. It is realism - but realism on a scale large enough to encompass the possibility of tragedy.
So far then we have seen that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory. But that is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. - Rom. 5:1-5 -
But as I say, we must hope to be saved since we are not saved yet - it is something we must wait for with patience. - Rom. 8:25 -
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away because it is being kept for you in the heavens. - 1Peter 1:3-4 -
Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. - 1Peter 1:13 -
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Friday, April 13, 2012
Hades, or Shoel, or Hell, the abode of the dead, was generally thought to be a meaningless place from which there was no return to real life. In the Old Testament, ancient times people does not believe that a human life can altogether extinguished, but that is a different thing from believing in the resurrection. Enoch and Elijah were spared going to Hades at all, and such a person might even restore life to one who had died. - 1Kings 17:17-23 -
Yet the Old Testament lays the foundations for a belief in resurrection by its repeated affirmation that life is essentially renewable. The Book of Daniel quoted a few texts on resurrection from the dead. Ezekiel, the prophet, for instance, uses resurrection language to speak of the whole nation's being restored to life. To sin and be forgiven is to experience a kind of resurrection. Faith in God who will not allow His purposes to be frustrated was commanding people toward a belief in resurrection.
But God will redeem my life
from the grasp of Shoel, and will receive me. - Psalms 49:15 -
Bless Yahweh, my soul,
and remember all his kindnesses;
in forgiving all your offences,
in curing all your diseases,
in redeeming your life from the Pit,
in crowning you with love and tenderness. - Psalms 103:2-4 -
By New Testament times only the Sadducees still not believing in the resurrection, and Jesus explained and teaches them that God's personal relationship with the patriarchs of old made it impossible to think of them as eternally separated from God, for He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.
Jesus replied, 'The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place on the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.' - Luke 20:34-38 -
The significance of Jesus' resurrection is explored throughout the New Testament. It was a vindication of all that Jesus had said and done. It was a token of what for others was still to come, for "Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep." - 1Cor. 15:20 - Speculative questions about the form of that experience were dismissed by Saint Paul with a peremptory "Fool!"
Someone may ask, 'How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come back?' They are stupid questions. Whatever you sow in the ground has to die before it is given new life and the thing that you sow is not what is going to come; you sow a bare grain, say of wheat or something like that, and then God gives it the sort of body that he has chosen: each sort of seed gets its own sort of body. - 1Cor. 15:35-38 -
Resurrection, however, is not treated in the New Testament as something that can be experienced only beyond death. It is seen as a quality of life that can be appropriated at once and will immediately influence every facet of behavior. In Colossians chapter 3, Saint Paul immediately goes on to describe in detail the characteristics of resurrection life as it is lived here and now.
Is it true that life can be caught up into a force that makes it indestructible?
More is at stake than a belief in life after death, though that would be plenty. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible view of resurrection is an affirmation about the nature of all human life and of the world itself. It says that we are part of a system in which renewal is always a possibility. The laws of entropy do not have the last word. It is not true that everything is perpetually running down so that it must all end in decay and death. Life is a renewable resource.
The person who believes in resurrection in this broad, biblical sense will neither cling to existing forms and institutions nor readily write them off: he or she will be prepared for them to rise again and to assume a new embodiment for the purpose. This belief has sociological understanding as well as personal consequences. All that and heaven too!
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Yet the Old Testament lays the foundations for a belief in resurrection by its repeated affirmation that life is essentially renewable. The Book of Daniel quoted a few texts on resurrection from the dead. Ezekiel, the prophet, for instance, uses resurrection language to speak of the whole nation's being restored to life. To sin and be forgiven is to experience a kind of resurrection. Faith in God who will not allow His purposes to be frustrated was commanding people toward a belief in resurrection.
But God will redeem my life
from the grasp of Shoel, and will receive me. - Psalms 49:15 -
Bless Yahweh, my soul,
and remember all his kindnesses;
in forgiving all your offences,
in curing all your diseases,
in redeeming your life from the Pit,
in crowning you with love and tenderness. - Psalms 103:2-4 -
By New Testament times only the Sadducees still not believing in the resurrection, and Jesus explained and teaches them that God's personal relationship with the patriarchs of old made it impossible to think of them as eternally separated from God, for He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.
Jesus replied, 'The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place on the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.' - Luke 20:34-38 -
The significance of Jesus' resurrection is explored throughout the New Testament. It was a vindication of all that Jesus had said and done. It was a token of what for others was still to come, for "Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep." - 1Cor. 15:20 - Speculative questions about the form of that experience were dismissed by Saint Paul with a peremptory "Fool!"
Someone may ask, 'How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come back?' They are stupid questions. Whatever you sow in the ground has to die before it is given new life and the thing that you sow is not what is going to come; you sow a bare grain, say of wheat or something like that, and then God gives it the sort of body that he has chosen: each sort of seed gets its own sort of body. - 1Cor. 15:35-38 -
Resurrection, however, is not treated in the New Testament as something that can be experienced only beyond death. It is seen as a quality of life that can be appropriated at once and will immediately influence every facet of behavior. In Colossians chapter 3, Saint Paul immediately goes on to describe in detail the characteristics of resurrection life as it is lived here and now.
Is it true that life can be caught up into a force that makes it indestructible?
More is at stake than a belief in life after death, though that would be plenty. The Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible view of resurrection is an affirmation about the nature of all human life and of the world itself. It says that we are part of a system in which renewal is always a possibility. The laws of entropy do not have the last word. It is not true that everything is perpetually running down so that it must all end in decay and death. Life is a renewable resource.
The person who believes in resurrection in this broad, biblical sense will neither cling to existing forms and institutions nor readily write them off: he or she will be prepared for them to rise again and to assume a new embodiment for the purpose. This belief has sociological understanding as well as personal consequences. All that and heaven too!
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Thursday, April 12, 2012
"We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus." The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross: Christ is risen from the dead!
Dying, he conquered death;
To the dead, he has given life. - CCC 638 - Acts 13:32-33 -
The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bear witness. In about A.D. 56 Saint Paul could already write to the Corinthians: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve..." The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus. - CCC 639 - 1Cor. 15:3-4; Acts 9:3-18 -
"Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." The first element we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ's body from the tomb could be explained otherwise. Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women, and then with Peter. The disciple "whom Jesus loved" affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and discovered "the linen cloths lying there," "he saw and believed." This suggests that he realized from the empty tomb's condition that the absence of Jesus' body could not have been of human doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the case with Lazarus. - CCC 640 - Matt. 28:11-15; Luke 24:3, 5-6, 12, 22-23; John 11:44, 20:2, 5-8, 13 -
Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One. Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ's Resurrection for the apostles themselves. They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers, and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of this testimony that the community exclaims: "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" - CCC 641 - Matt. 29:9-10; Mark 16:1; Luke 22:31-32, 24:1, 9-10, 34-36; John 19:31, 42, 20:11-18; 1Cor. 15:5 -
Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles - and Peter in particular - in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection," but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles. - CCC 642 - 1Cor. 15:4-8; Acts 1:22 -
Given all these testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put to the test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that as least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized ("looking sad") and frightened. For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle tale." When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. - CCC 643 - Mark 16:11-14; Luke 22:31-32, 24:14, 17; John 20:19 -
Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing they thought they were seeing a ghost. "In their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering." Thomas will also experience the test of doubt and Saint Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's last appearance in Galilee "some doubted." Therefore the hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus. - CCC 644 - Matt. 28:17; Luke 24:38-41; John 20:24-27 -
Page 2
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
Dying, he conquered death;
To the dead, he has given life. - CCC 638 - Acts 13:32-33 -
The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bear witness. In about A.D. 56 Saint Paul could already write to the Corinthians: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve..." The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus. - CCC 639 - 1Cor. 15:3-4; Acts 9:3-18 -
"Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." The first element we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ's body from the tomb could be explained otherwise. Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women, and then with Peter. The disciple "whom Jesus loved" affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and discovered "the linen cloths lying there," "he saw and believed." This suggests that he realized from the empty tomb's condition that the absence of Jesus' body could not have been of human doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the case with Lazarus. - CCC 640 - Matt. 28:11-15; Luke 24:3, 5-6, 12, 22-23; John 11:44, 20:2, 5-8, 13 -
Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One. Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ's Resurrection for the apostles themselves. They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers, and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of this testimony that the community exclaims: "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" - CCC 641 - Matt. 29:9-10; Mark 16:1; Luke 22:31-32, 24:1, 9-10, 34-36; John 19:31, 42, 20:11-18; 1Cor. 15:5 -
Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles - and Peter in particular - in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection," but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles. - CCC 642 - 1Cor. 15:4-8; Acts 1:22 -
Given all these testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put to the test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that as least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized ("looking sad") and frightened. For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle tale." When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. - CCC 643 - Mark 16:11-14; Luke 22:31-32, 24:14, 17; John 20:19 -
Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing they thought they were seeing a ghost. "In their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering." Thomas will also experience the test of doubt and Saint Matthew relates that during the risen Lord's last appearance in Galilee "some doubted." Therefore the hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles' faith (or credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus. - CCC 644 - Matt. 28:17; Luke 24:38-41; John 20:24-27 -
Page 2
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"By the grace of God" Jesus tasted death "for everyone." In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only "die for our sins" but should also "taste death," experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb, reveals God's great Sabbath rest after the fulfillment of man's salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe. -CCC 624 - John 19:30,42; 1Cor. 15:3; Heb. 2:9, 4:7-9; Col. 1:18-20 -
Christ's stay in the tomb constitutes the real link between his passible state before Easter and his glorious and risen state today. The same person of the "Living One" can say, "I died, and behold I am alive for evermore." - CCC 625 - Rev. 1:18 -
God [the Son] did not impede death from separating his soul from his body according to the necessary order of nature, but has united them to one another in the Resurrection, so that he himself might, in his person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts. - St. Gregory of Nyssa -
Since the "Author of life" who was killed is the same "living one [who has] risen" the divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death: - CCC 626 - Acts 3:15; Luke 24:5-6 -
By the fact that at Christ's death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word. - St. John Damascene -
Christ's death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for "divine power preserved Christ's body from corruption." Both of these statements can be said of Christ: "He was cut off out of the land of the living," and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption." Jesus' Resurrection "on the third day" was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death. - CCC 627 - St. Thomas Aquinas, Is. 53:8; Ps. 16:9-10; Jon. 2:1; Hos. 6:2; Acts 2;26-27; 1Cor. 15:4; Matt. 12:40; Luke 24:46; John 11:39 -
Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life," - CCC 628 - Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12; Eph. 5:26 -
To the benefit of every man, Jesus tasted death. It is truly the Son of God made man who died and was buried. - CCC 629 -
During Christ's period in the tomb, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body, although they were separated from each other by death. For this reason the dead Christ's body "saw no corruption". - Acts 13:37 - CCC 630 -
Jesus "descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens." The Apostles' Creed confesses in the same article Christ's descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth: - CCC 631 - Eph. 4:9-10 -
Christ, the Morning Star, who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. - Roman Missal, Easter Vigil 18, Exsultet -
The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. - CCC 632 - Rom. 8:11; 1Cor. 15:20; Heb. 13:20; 1Peter 3:18-19 -
Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom". It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but free the just who had gone before him. - CCC 633 - 1Sam. 28:19; Ezk. 32:17-32; Ps. 89:49; Luke 16:22-26; Acts 2:24; Phil. 2:10; Eph. 4:9 -
"The gospel was preached even to the dead." The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been sharers in the redemption. - CCC 634 - 1Peter 4:6 -
Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Jesus, "The Author of life," by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." Henceforth, the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades," so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." - CCC 635 - Matt. 12:24; John 5:25; Acts 3:15; Rom. 10:7; Heb. 2:14-15 -
By the expression "He descended into hell," the Apostles' Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil "who has the power of death." - CCC 636 -
In his human souls united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven's gates for the just who had gone before him. - CCC 637 -
Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.
By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
Christ's stay in the tomb constitutes the real link between his passible state before Easter and his glorious and risen state today. The same person of the "Living One" can say, "I died, and behold I am alive for evermore." - CCC 625 - Rev. 1:18 -
God [the Son] did not impede death from separating his soul from his body according to the necessary order of nature, but has united them to one another in the Resurrection, so that he himself might, in his person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts. - St. Gregory of Nyssa -
Since the "Author of life" who was killed is the same "living one [who has] risen" the divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death: - CCC 626 - Acts 3:15; Luke 24:5-6 -
By the fact that at Christ's death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word. - St. John Damascene -
Christ's death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for "divine power preserved Christ's body from corruption." Both of these statements can be said of Christ: "He was cut off out of the land of the living," and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption." Jesus' Resurrection "on the third day" was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death. - CCC 627 - St. Thomas Aquinas, Is. 53:8; Ps. 16:9-10; Jon. 2:1; Hos. 6:2; Acts 2;26-27; 1Cor. 15:4; Matt. 12:40; Luke 24:46; John 11:39 -
Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life," - CCC 628 - Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12; Eph. 5:26 -
To the benefit of every man, Jesus tasted death. It is truly the Son of God made man who died and was buried. - CCC 629 -
During Christ's period in the tomb, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body, although they were separated from each other by death. For this reason the dead Christ's body "saw no corruption". - Acts 13:37 - CCC 630 -
Jesus "descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens." The Apostles' Creed confesses in the same article Christ's descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth: - CCC 631 - Eph. 4:9-10 -
Christ, the Morning Star, who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. - Roman Missal, Easter Vigil 18, Exsultet -
The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. - CCC 632 - Rom. 8:11; 1Cor. 15:20; Heb. 13:20; 1Peter 3:18-19 -
Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom". It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but free the just who had gone before him. - CCC 633 - 1Sam. 28:19; Ezk. 32:17-32; Ps. 89:49; Luke 16:22-26; Acts 2:24; Phil. 2:10; Eph. 4:9 -
"The gospel was preached even to the dead." The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been sharers in the redemption. - CCC 634 - 1Peter 4:6 -
Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Jesus, "The Author of life," by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." Henceforth, the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades," so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." - CCC 635 - Matt. 12:24; John 5:25; Acts 3:15; Rom. 10:7; Heb. 2:14-15 -
By the expression "He descended into hell," the Apostles' Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil "who has the power of death." - CCC 636 -
In his human souls united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven's gates for the just who had gone before him. - CCC 637 -
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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