Romans 5:20

Reading USCCA, Chapter 6: Man and Woman in the Beginning

I believe I am created by God in God's Image.  I believe each and every person is specially created by God in His Image.  What this means to me is first of all that God celebrates His own Goodness and Truth by expressing Himself in all of His creation, and especially in the Personhood of each human-being.  I am designed by God to be capable of knowing Him, wanting to know Him, relating with Him, and finding my Being in loving relationship with Him.  The Lord-God (Father-Son-Holy-Spirit) has willed me into being because God is Love, and Love enjoys the fruitfulness of giving life.

I believe that when we sin, we mar that image of God, and we distort our own being, who God designed us to be and become.  I believe that the Original Sin of Adam and Eve caused the biggest mar/wound/breach/broken-ness.  But the amazing thing about God's Love is that Love can take the materials of evil, sin, broken-ness, etc., and use it for an even greater Wholeness-in-Him: redemption.  Jesus-Christ's work of Redeeming all people by becoming enfleshed, living as a man, dying on the Cross, resurrecting from the dead, and ascending into Heaven, was no after-thought.  This self-giving on God's part, most fully expressed in Jesus-Christ, was always part of God's God-ness.  God IS self-giving.  God IS the initiator.  God creates.  God redeems.

I think most of the people I know who might reject or struggle with the idea of sin do so because they have attached their concept of themselves to that first sin, like Adam and Eve, of believing they can know Truth apart from God, and that they can have life apart from their Creator.  I think a "First Humility" is required to be born again, to recognize God, and to accept His Grace.  I think this "First Humility" is within our very essence as creatures.  God formed us from the earth, humus...  I'm not talking about any sort of piety or circumstantially imposed baseness; I'm talking about the very fact that we are creatures.  As creatures, we can't really know anything in Truth (i.e. w/out distortion), until we know ourselves in relation to our Creator.    If we deny the Creator, the idea of sin makes no sense.  If we are the authors or designers of our lives and context, then any notion of morality has to be relative to ourselves.  Sin implies we have a relationship with Someone to Whom we are accountable.  There might be other reasons people struggle with the idea of "sin" or especially in thinking of themselves as "sinners," but for most of the people I personally know who struggle with this, it's because of what I would call an "intellectual sin;" at some point in their lives they embraced the deceiver's lie that God need not be our starting point, that we can explore and learn apart/without God.

That some people believe they can earn salvation through their own efforts is, from my perspective, surprisingly very akin to the notion there is no sin and no need for God.  My understanding of "sin" (whether it be Original Sin or our own sins) is that we have turned away from God, we have chosen something that is not according to God's Will/Plan, we have in essence killed our living relationship w/ our Life-Source: God.  The breach/ death that sin causes is something we can't repair or revoke.  Only God can "bridge the gap," repair our nature, revive/renew/re-create a life-giving relationship with us.

I do believe that faith without works is dead.  But it is not the works that saves us.  Our works are our response to the gift of faith.  God has done all the saving-work, but we accept and grow in our relationship with God by gratefully obeying Him, which is how we let Him live in us, and in so doing, we become (again through the work of the Holy Spirit) the creature we were meant to become: created in His Image.  Jesus Christ is the way of salvation because Jesus Himself IS our salvation, Jesus IS our Life; it is by being alive in Christ that we are united with our Heavenly Father.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%205:20&version=NIV
Thanks be to God!

An Unaltered Faith

The  following texts are excerpts I've highlighted while reading The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM).  From the Introduction; Testimony of an Unaltered Faith:

The sacrificial nature of the Mass, solemnly defended by the Council of Trent, because it accords with the universal tradition of the Church, was once more stated by the Second Vatican Council, which pronounced these clear words about the Mass: "At the Last Supper, Our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood, by which the Sacrifice of his Cross is perpetuated until he comes again; and till then he entrusts the memorial of his Death and Resurrection to his beloved spouse, the Church."
..."for whenever the memorial of this sacrifice is celebrated the work of our redemption is accomplished..."
So, in the new Missal the rule of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church corresponds to her perennial rule of faith (lex credendi), by which we are truly taught that the sacrifice of his Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and commanded his Apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of their offering; and as a result, that the Mass is at one and the same time a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, propitiation, and satisfaction.
...the royal Priesthood of the faithful... For the celebration of the Eucharist is the action of the whole Church... For this people is the People of God, purchased by Christ's Blood, gathered together by the Lord, nourished by his word, the people called to present to God the prayers of the entire human family, a people that gives thanks in Christ for the mystery of salvation by offering his Sacrifice, a people, finally, that is brought together in unity by Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ.  This people, though holy in its origin, nevertheless grows constantly in holiness by conscious, active, and fruitful participation in the mystery of the Eucharist.

Today I'm going back to "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."  I want to get better acquainted w/ Flannery O'Connor and her context, and then to read Regis Martin's work about her.

It suddenly occurred to me how much I need to take stock of the fact that these people whom I feel are worth reading lived on this same earth that I do now.  I don't really believe that is altogether true.  The world today feels like such a different time and space than even what it was when I was growing up that I couldn't feel more alien than if this were a different planet, an alternate earth.  I live with that view daily, so prominent in my mind, that I tend to forget the rest of the truth: although things are changing, this is still the same earth, this is still the on-going story of human-kind, God is still present, and His Story of redemption is still unfolding.

I think of the hymn "God Is Working His Purpose Out"

God is working His purpose out

As year succeeds to year;

God is working his purpose out,

And the time is drawing near;

Nearer and nearer draws the time,

The time that shall surely be,

When the earth shall be filled

With the glory of God

As the waters cover the sea.

From utmost east to utmost west,

Where’er man’s foot hath trod,

By the mouth of many messengers

Goes forth the voice of God:

“Give ear to Me, ye continents,

Ye isles, give ear to Me,”

That the earth may be filled

With the glory of God

As the waters cover the sea.

What can we do to work God’s work,

To prosper and increase

The brotherhood of all mankind,

The reign of the Prince of Peace?

What can we do to hasten the time,

The time that shall surely be,

When the earth shall be filled

With the glory of God

As the waters cover the sea.

March we forth in the strength of God,

With the banner of Christ unfurled,

That the light of the glorious Gospel of truth

May shine throughout the world;

Fight we the fight with sorrow and sin

To set their captives free,

That the earth may be filled

With the glory of God

As the waters cover the sea.

All we can do is nothing worth

Unless God blesses the deed;

Vainly we hope for the harvest-tide

Till God gives life to the seed;

Yet near and nearer draws the time,

The time that shall surely be,

When the earth shall be filled

With the glory of God

As the waters cover the sea.

This hymn is so grand and focuses on the sovereignty of God, and while it is all true, I need to focus on how this same great God who has worked in the past is yet working today, and sometimes in very small (seemingly insignificant) and subtle ways, more to the point: through individuals and the circumstances of their ordinary lives.