Good bye dear Papa! May every moment until you go to see Jesus be one filled with the rich treasures of your service and may the angels and saints be near to you giving you peace and joy.

The Truth about God

As many times as I have insisted on it, there remains a majority of Adventists who will not believe me. 

[I think once you leave the SDA church you are by default untrustworthy because you have either fallen prey to deception or you are a defiant rebel wearing a Christian disguise. So Adventist tend to be suspicious of your motives or diagnose you as being unable to understand your own heart. That judgement doesn’t upset me because, if I can do some of my own analysis, it is a survival posture for them.]

Nevertheless, I will once again repeat and insist, I care about doctrines, not about hypocrites.

I want a religion that tells me the truth about God. That’s it.

I didn’t leave the Seventh-day Adventist church because of people or hurts or the hypocrites. I left because of doctrines. The doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church did not tell me the full truth about God. The Adventist people, at least the ones I have known and currently know are wonderful, generous, many of whom love the Lord with a passion. In every single church I attended, from the SDA to the Baptist, to the Methodist, to the Disciples of Christ, to the Lutherans, to the Anglican, to the Orthodox (and I many years worshipping with them all!) I found the people to be wonderful, sincere who told me some truths about God and some things that just didn’t seem right when I compared it with scripture and Christian history. 

I want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about God. And I am willing to conform my thinking and my religious practices to it. If I can find the truth about God by kneeling quietly saying a rosary with the Mother of Jesus or by bathing in yellow paint and squawking like a chicken while eating jasmine on a mountain trek through the Himalayas, that is what I will do. I will do what it takes to know the truth about Him, seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven even if it means forsaking all, taking up my cross and following Him. Whatever the form of worship it requires--if that’s candles and incense, confession and penance or worshipping with nothing but a Bible and in my pajamas in a quiet corner of my house. I will do it His way in order to get the truth about Him.

That is my attitude.

In order to prove the corruption of the Catholic Church, I am reminded on a daily basis about the sins of Catholics....the inquisition, the anti-popes, the selling of indulgences, the Catholics involvement in WWII’s Croatian genocide, the priests’ sex scandal, and how the person addressing me left the Catholic church because of a horrible priest or nun. And that makes me want to puke and it makes me want to tear out my hair and throw myself in hot ashes and fast until I die, but it doesn’t make me want to leave Catholicism. Horrible, wicked, unfathomable actions by horrible wicked unfathomable people do not change the truth about God. And if the Catholic Church tells us the truth about God, the fullest truth about God, then it is no wonder that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence from every soul that hates Him; no wonder it is holding back the gates of hell and being assaulted on every side, including inside.

If every single demon of hell joined the Catholic Church and tried to burn down the whole world (and they did and it didn’t work) that would not hurt the Truth.  Oh, the demons did some real damage with the Inquisition, the priestly sex scandal, they even wormed their way into Peter’s Chair and tried to change the doctrines, but they didn’t. The demons were too busy with fleshly distractions to distort doctrine. 

Like Job and like Peter, the devil asked God to give over to him His leaders and saints so that he may sift them like wheat. And, though they were tortured and tried, the core was not touched. 

The Church’s very nature of being he Bride of Christ was left bruised and bleeding but still structurally intact. Or like His mother Mary, the Catholic Church has suffered watching the devil try to re-crucify Christ through His Church, and yet the fullness of Truth about God is still there as it was from the beginning.

Of course, I could go to any Christian church for some truth, and I am blessed by so many of them. Goodness pours forth from the communities of faith who love Christ. And they too have their human struggles with sin. I expect people to sin. I am not looking for a church with sinless people, because, after all, the Lord said that His Kingdom would be full of wheats and tares and if the church is full of perfect people, I am not in the right church.

It’s all about doctrine. Truth about God is found in true doctrine and if a nuclear bomb of sin and corruption were to be detonated at the Vatican or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or a plague of evil was to infect every priest alive, as long as the doctrine held, then I am where God wants me to be. I have clung to the Truth about God.

What I find most interesting is that so many people who tell me they left the SDA church because of doctrine are the very ones to point out to me the failures of Catholic leadership and ask me how I can be part of a church with such a history of failures.

Well, for me it is about... doctrines... not hypocrites. I go back to the Bible and the early church and the doctrines are Catholic. I would rather be in a church that tell me the fullness of truth about God and everyone fails to live up to the truth, rather than an easy church where people all live up to their beliefs and it isn’t true.

There is some connection in people’s brain with how the Christian acts and what he believes. We are revolted by hypocrisy, and hypocrisy can tempt us to turn from truth. And I think we are hard-wired to make the assumption that we should act as we believe. A  monstrous problem within Christianity is that very few people are on the road to sainthood and we render the gospel powerless through our inability as the Body of Christ to be a truthful representation of Christ. So rather than suffer and sacrifice to prevent public hypocrisy, we create mega-churches with theatre seating that preach the prosperity gospel. The church of entertainment has no hypocrites. And in the end, even that sales pitch is returned for being defective because most Christians suffer and don’t live in mansions.

The church of God should be realistic. It should be embracing the sinner, teaching the truth of grace that imparts holiness as it escorts the sinner along the path to seeing God face to face. On this journey you encounter faltering popes, bishops, priests, nuns and brothers and sisters. The vital question is: Are they faltering because they are on the wrong road or are they faltering because they are weak?  

So, let’s be clear (smile!). If you want to show me the errors of Catholicism, don’t point out a bad pope, some bad bishops or a cadre of rotten priests, monks, friars, nuns or lay Catholics. Don’t show me the catastrophic failure of the church to live up to the truth. 

Show me how the Catholic Church is not the church Christ started using both the Catholic Bible and the early church fathers. Show me that break in the line from the point where Christ promised His Bride these things and then divorced her:

So they [Christ and His Bride] are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." Matt. 19: 6 

What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Mark 10: 9

And:

You are Kephas (Peter) and upon Kephas I will build my church and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18)

And:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. (John 14:16)

And:

Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."  (Heb. 13:5)

And:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee... Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matt. 28: 16-20)

To convince me that I am in the wrong church, you will have to show me where in the New Testament where Christ or His Apostles prophesied that His Bride would be corrupted to the point that He would leave her and forsake her and break all His promises to His church about being with her to the very end. 

You would have to show me in scripture or in the Church Fathers where your personal interpretation of God’s word, or the Reformers, or Ellen White is more authoritative than the Catholic Church’s. One person, or one groups proof-texting against another groups proof-texting is just a battle of interpretation of scripture and prove nothing.

I am not being snarky or confrontative, I am being sincere. It is on the basis of Truth, doctrines, that I believe something. You would have to show me where in scripture that God handed the authority to teach and interpret the scripture to the individual rather than the corporate church--that the Truth, is up to each of us to decide from our personally-appointed source of truth. That is the only way we can debate Catholicism.

The Atonement: A Catholic Understanding

Many who describe themselves as post-Christian, object to the barbaric idea of a loving God requiring His Son to die on a cross. This theology of a wrath-filled God satisfied, His anger appeased by a bloody sacrifice is a horror to them. I understand that perspective. That does not describe the Catholic model of atonement. 

Note: The Catholic Church does not have a dogma about exactly what the atonement did. It is still an open question. While we have a general belief, there are nuances that are not settled, so keep this in mind as you read. Catholics are free to disagree with my model... but it was argued and accepted as a possible explanation by the Scholastics in the Middle Ages.

Did God require a bloody sacrifice of an innocent victim to satisfy His wrath and atone for sin? 

To answer, I wish to return to the birth of evil:

/\

Before the age of man, the wondrous Prince of the angels, allowed into the inner machinations of the Master Designer, emerged with a word of horror. This seraph, commander of powers and principalities for aeons, claimed that the God of the universe was no longer God. This deceiver claimed that He-who-ruled-the-infinite was unjust and could no longer be trusted. 

The darkened seraph broke with the Trinity clouding with sin the unseen deep. And the shadow of corruption curled its way into the cosmos threatening all that exists. The heavens,
a third of the spiritual entities---now violated and abused by the Father of Lies--was ensnared. 

The cries of infinite pain reeled and agitated in a cosmos of uncertainty. Unthinkable thoughts, ideas never conceived in the heart of any being for all existence awoke and brought a nightmare to which we have yet to awaken.  Questions of who is trustworthy, the unseen Spirit who has always been know as God or the archangel to whom the spirits pledged fidelity? A brother or a Creator? Who do we obey? No hint or breath of rebellion had ever entered the thoughts or hearts of any created being until now. Darkness and light warred. Turmoil marred heaven before it even touched earth.

/\

Then, precious man, the apple of God’s eye, the only creature in  the Almighty’s creation made in His likeness and in His image also disobeyed and began to distrust God.  Man too became abused by sin and fell under the darkness of lies. 

The rebellion did not catch God unawares. Understanding the heart of man, the plan of Salvation had been conceived from the beginning. Restoring universal paradise and eradicating sin forever, God must dispel Satan’s myths and restore trust.

Salvation wasn’t about a Great Controversy between Christ and Satan as if they were equal warriors trying to defend their kingdoms. Redemption had nothing to do with the Devil’s rights over fallen man. Satan stood guilty and deserved nothing but eternal damnation. The solution took no note of Satan, nor needed to satisfy any devilish demand. 

Divine Justice must be satisfied but there was no great infinite law that required a sacrifice. This wasn’t about blood lust. The Trinity was not forced to choose the Cross, in fact, God could have chosen to forgive without a need for Divine satisfaction. The Cross was not literally our punishment, our verdict of death, that Christ took upon Himself.

Do not misunderstand. The verdict of sin was death. Scripture is clear about that. But that was God's decision. It wasn't from some law that hung over God forcing His hand. 

The Cross was chosen to restore our intimate unity with the Trinity and to deliver us from the deceit and destruction of sin. Our Heavenly Father embraced a miraculous rescue plan of infinite and eternal potency--more powerful than faith, greater than hope, a force of such magnitude that could annihilate with one expiring breathe all the sins of humankind--

He chose love. 

†

How does the Cross show love? 

Many people do not feel love when they look at the crucifixion; they feel disgust.  How does God coming and suffering torture and death for us show love? Let's look at a couple of typical lives:

The sleepy darkness is again disrupted for the tiny girl as poppa reels and stumbles home, his whiskeyed breath replaying the same quarrel with momma. One day, a divorce tears her family apart and the little girl will spend a lifetime atop an emotional rampart with bow in hand in a disoriented battle, never understanding this suffering stems from fear of abandonment and a desperate need for intimacy. 

In a quest to find manhood, this young, dashing lad targets vulnerable women for a night of pleasure, and as the years go by each encounter enslaves him in selfish darkness and asphyxiates the protector knight inside, eventually leaving a chasm of loneliness between he and his wife.  

The story of each human bears the wounds of Satan’s deception. Where we wander pursuing comfort or pleasure or money, we find ourselves caught in the trap of a self-centeredness thralldom, cursing the unforeseen fate of divorce, betrayal, hatred, jealousy, addiction, greed, broken promises, lies. Humanity is crippled, tormented with the catastrophic failure of our choices. And we find ourselves, as the race of Adam, unable to trust. How does one know, see, feel love in a world gone mad with the pursuit of personal happiness?

How can we restore love and trust?

Believe it or not, we discover love in sacrifice.

The little girl must see her father struggle to overcome his alcoholism and determine to be a good father and husband. The young man must find his manhood in determined, self-sacrificing choices, disciplining his sexual desires for the woman who will one day be his wife. Love and trust can only be restored by a husband fighting the temptation of adultery and pornography, a woman taking the responsibility of motherhood and devoting herself to her children instead of herself. 

The world is in need of a good fight. Not a fight to win power, comfort, money or fame. The world is in need of seeing a fight, a struggle of sacrifice for us to show us we are worth it. 

Love is not proven through words of promise or soft whispers of sweet feelings, not proven through quality time spent together, or gifts, or fun times. Love faithfully battles to give birth, to provide food, shelter, to remain true to one’s promises. Love faces hell and absorbs the enemies blows and if necessary sacrifices all its earthly desires, treasures and resources for the beloved. Self-sacrifice is the essence of love. 

This is the reason for the Cross. 

God could have forgiven Adam and Eve without need of Divine reparation. Justice could have been meted out with a stern lecture. Yet, the Creator knew that once sin wormed its way into existence and planted doubts and mistrust into the hearts of man, that love would have to be proven through the fires of Christ’s passion--the suffering of the Cross. Love is a battle for the beloved drawing the slings and arrows of pain and injustice into oneself to protect the Beloved. 

God hated sin. And He would do whatever it took to convince us that sin would wipe out the smallest sign of life if left unchecked. Sin had to be seen for what is was, God had to be seen for Who He Was. 

The full measure of sin and the full measure of Love were displayed at Christ’s death.

All the destructive, frenzied demonic forces of the universe converged at the Cross to wreck creation. Desiring to murder the Greatest of all Innocence and Purity, and yet fearful of the results of His death; rather, the hellish forces were willing to spend all eternity shredding the human flesh of Life and Love itself. The horror of sin, the depravity and depths of its ugliness were shown to the cosmos. 

Christ, our Savior, handed His soul freely to death, that we might look upon His sacrifice and trust Him. His reached out His hands and embraced us through the Cross that we might never question His goodness and His love for us--that we might never despair of our importance to God, question if He is love or fear the confusion of who we are to obey. Our heavenly Father, looking upon His Son on the Cross was seeing the greatest display of love ever known and it was beautiful and pleasing in His sight. 

The Cross isn’t about blood and offerings to satisfy an angry God, it is about proving for all time that Love is more powerful, and bigger than sin. And in God’s omniscience, the Cross was the best and most effective way to show this. Love captured and enveloped sin; it’s fire destroyed it. Catholics teach that through the Cross, the world can see that love won.

This Atonement theology found at the Catholic Encyclopedia 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02055a.htm

LISTEN!! (Attention is kindly requested...)

All my life I have been told to calm down and say things without emotion and I would be taken seriously. These bouts I had of hysteria weren't about being a drama queen. I was terrified for my friends and I was trying--- as a fifth grader (up to.... the present time) to help! You see I grew up in the 1970's when Mayberry was being invaded by Woodstock and it upset me terribly. All these parents had no idea what was going on with their children and I wanted to warn them. So I sounded the alarm when my friends started experimenting with drugs. The wide-eyed smiles of the parents or teachers turned patronizing as they placed their hand on my shoulder and tole me to calm down.

"Honey, I think you are probably exaggerating. Calm down, everything is okay. Do we need to take you to a counselor? Are you taking drugs?"

When my friends were having sex, cheating or even when they admitted they were suicidal or that they were being sexually molested by someone... I would do just what everyone now says to do... I told someone... teachers, pastors, parents and basically nothing was ever done. I was always told to "calm down" and I would be more likely to be listened to with seriousness.

So when I became actively involved in the pro-life movement and I spoke at schools, universities, on radio shows and in church, I learned to speak with clarity, rationally and with utter dispassion. I calmly presented cold, harsh facts. Some people even told me that I needed more passion or else I wouldn't be listened to.

And in the end, when I spoke with confidence and assurance and calmness, no one listened to me. For a while I blamed it on my gender and my build. I am a small female and the problem was male chauvinism. In the end, that really wasn't it. Women didn't listen either.

They were wrong about speaking with less emotion and they were wrong when they told me to speak with more emotion. 

And I figured out why. Luke 16.

A rich man clothed in purple daily feasted sumptuously. At his gate lay poor, sickly and starving Lazarus who died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. When the rich man died and went to hell, in his torment he cried out to Father Abraham, "I beg you, father, to send Lazarus to my five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment." Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.'"

There's the answer.

The cold, sterile rational, unemotional written law could not convince the rich man's brothers. Theatrics, high drama, hysterics, even the miracle of raising someone from the dead cannot open the eyes and ears of those who do not wish to see or understand.

Jesus himself, telling this parable, understood all to well when His own disciples failed to comprehend who he was and the miracles He performed.

The Holy Spirit needs to have made a crack in someone's heart and mind. And then, what I have discovered, is that it doesn't matter if you are hysterical, emotional or clumsy with words or nerdy with your dispassionate dissertation of the facts. If the person wants to hear it, they will. The Holy Spirit will interpret the message in the hearer's heart.


God uses all of us, no matter how we say it to reach those who are yearning for truth. Pray for the Holy Spirit and then say it the best way you can and leave the rest to God. Some of the seed will fall on healthy soil, some will fall on hard soil and rarely will you get to stick around and watch the growth. Speak it with love, act it with love and then lift it up to God as a sacrifice to Him and He will turn it into what He wants it to be for His glory.

Where Is Daddy? Michael Voris

How the Sacraments Make Men

After the London Male Fashion week where models were wearing dresses...well... I think this post is germane:

_________________________

The world needs courageous Christian men with a passion for God, a passion for holiness; masculine men, who initiate; who are responsible and steadfast men, strong and faithful, disciplined and add to that a dash of kind.

What our culture is growing are boys of ease who want to be men of ease. It is a culture of Wikipedia, the microwave and the bell curve. Survivor Man, a fishing channel, and Sunday football televise recreation. Now men are so passive that when they get hungry watching other men be active, all they have to do is tear upon a bag of chips. Their testosterone chooses to stay-at-home and become a hero in a video game or pursue anime women instead of getting out and initiating a conversation with an actual woman. And Christian guys often choose the comfort of a stay-at-home church or a church so casual that the strain of tucking their t-shirt into their old jeans isn’t required. 

Ever since Adam blamed Eve, God seems to spend a lot of His time making cowards into men. God violently confronted Moses and Jacob getting into a physical fight before making them His leaders. He knew they needed to be able to take a punch to be heroes and saints.

Interestingly, one of the great side effects of being a Catholic is that if you start your boys out young being faithful to the sacraments, they will do a lot to infuse masculine traits. For, not only will they receive passive, imputed grace making them like Christ, but the personal initiation and struggle of the will to do the sacrament is an active grace. The sacraments are heavenly discipline, spiritual bootcamp.

Think about it.

If a man is baptized and confirmed as an adult, it requires a lifelong commitment--that in an act of the will that moves into an act of the body. He must go through RCIA. That’s one step in the right direction. Even if baptized as a newborn, the child will then go through the steps to confirmation. The sacrament of baptism and confirmation requires commitment.

The sacrament of reconciliation teaches a boy to be a man through self-examination. It requires him to regularly think about what he had done wrong, why, and then have the humble courage and emotional strength to admit it, out loud, to another man. All that analysis can cause you to realize that not only are you not so good, so you better not judge others, but you are not so bad and all that learning of self-forgiveness can bleed into forgiving others and learning some sense of humor. So the sacrament of Penance/Reconciliation develops: courage, humility, faithfulness, commitment, kindness, humor, discipline and wisdom. That sacrament alone, if you teach your sons what it means and take him to it from an early age will do a great deal to make him a man.

When you go to the sacrament of the Eucharist daily or weekly, we teach an active grace of faithfulness, self-denial and steadfastness. 

Then if your son’s vocation is marriage or holy orders, these sacraments can take them to another step of active, manly grace. For whether they make a life-long commitment to a woman or the church, they will develop courage, faithfulness, kindness, discipline, and even physical strength being a good husband or priest. As the years go by and they have to make decisions that may cause suffering for them or their families or parishes, they learn wisdom and humility.

Even the sacrament of Anointing the Sick can make a man more humble and give him the courage to face serious illness or death.

God gave us a type of Divine GPS to help boys find their way into manhood and once there continue honing his masculinity until he becomes the ultimate hero--a saint--and that is through the sacraments.

Question for Christian Historians

Just read where some medieval theologians believed that burning a heretic purged him of his sins, that rather than punishing him and sending the heretic to hell, that burning would cleanse them. Does anyone know if this statement is correct, that a common idea of burning was for purification rather than punishment?

Catholics and the Dance of Salvation

Preface

There is so much distrust between Catholics and Protestants, that in order to understand each other, we have to find neutral territory--a territory of neutral language using mutually understood spiritual terms where meanings are clear. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, a four-foot window and a four-foot elephant can create a “foot”confusion and though we may all think it silly to think a window has four feet like an elephant has four feet it is not so funny when it comes to terms like eucharist and purgatory.

In order to love each other as Christ commanded, a step in faith must be taken towards each other realizing that though we may never agree with each other’s interpretation of scripture, at least we will honestly understand the points on which we disagree instead of all this confusing spiritual propaganda that keeps flying between us--creating an impassible irritation of spiritual pride.

I know what many of you are thinking...

This has nothing to do with misunderstanding, but everything to do with the doctrines of demons and Catholics who are trying to make evil good. And everyone I speak to “knows a guy” who was Catholic who had all kinds of stories about wicked Catholic priests or a Catholic who was wounded by Catholic works-righteousness dogmas. 

As a convert, I am trying to figure this out. The Catholicism I was drawn to... the Catholicism that I have studied shows the opposite of what those people tell me. The Catechism, Catholic’s official documents, the Bible and Christian church history all back up the Catholicism that I was taught--a faith salvation not of works but of grace. I am working on finding and expressing an answer about American Catholics who were brought up being taught you have to earn you way to heaven. Seems to me it is a catastrophic failure of teaching Catholic truths.

I realize that this is what Adventists say to ex-SDAs. They claim that we just didn’t fully understand Adventist doctrine. So I want to run from that excuse. But if it is true, then it is true whether or not Adventists use the excuse. However, poor catechesis is not a fully satisfactory answer to me. How can so many Catholics believe in works-righteousness when it is not their doctrine? I just don’t know.... I am working on that one....

However, the Catholics I do know... the Catholics that go regularly to mass and who live the faith, have no misunderstanding and cry out in frustration when they are accused of working their way to heaven.

Cradle Catholics, or those who have never been Protestant, have a huge difficulty in explaining their faith to Protestants because the way in which Catholics and Protestants understand salvation is different. It is not just a matter of works righteousness. This is a matter of basic world views and when and where and how we receive God and are born-again.

Since I find spiritual wording to be an enormous barrier, I will attempt to use words in a way that truly communicates our Catholic faith in Protestant language. It might very well confuse Catholics if they read it... but since I have been on both sides, I think I can link together both world views. Hopefully....

Salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven

Catholics believe they, along with the Orthodox who both began with Jesus, are the Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven) as Christ laid out in Matthew’s gospel chapter thirteen. Every time Christ says “the kingdom” Catholics see this as pointing to a real, visible church that Christ started. The attributes of this kingdom--filled with wheats and tares and different edible and inedible fish and seeds that dry up and die--is the kingdom, even in its earthly imperfection. This kingdom, Jesus tells us, doesn’t start out perfect but becomes perfect in order to be received by Christ at His literal Second Coming.  

[And Catholics teach this perfection is not all done while on earth, that those sins we are addicted to now are overcome in purgatory. And all sin is overcome by God’s grace; we do not earn heaven. More on that later.]

Catholics see the book of Revelation as the prophetic story of Christ’s Body in His Church. Revelation is the story of the Catholic Church.  I know many Christians see this as arrogant... “The Catholic Church the Church? Humph! Hardly!”  And I don’t blame them, it does sound very arrogant when there are around 20,000 different denominations today and all claim to be part of the church. I am not saying you have to agree, but just for a moment try and understand a Catholic worldview.

There was only one church for a thousand years. Then the Orthodox and Catholics broke from one another, but it stayed the east and western churches for another five hundred years with no real break-off churches that survived. So for 15 centuries the west had only one universal church. It had only one Bible. It had only one mind with one understanding of the gospel. Not to say the understanding of truths didn’t grow deeper, and some things were debated, but little changed in the area of basic doctrines. 

But this Catholic Church Kingdom of Heaven didn’t simply begin at Christ. The Church is the Kingdom that goes back all the way to God’s promise to David.

The Promised Everlasting Kingdom

II Sam. 7: 12-17 records God’s promise to King David:

I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever .   (see also 1 Chr. 22:10; 28:7, Dan. 2:44; 7:18)

Jesus came and fulfilled the Davidic Kingdom on earth. He brought the Eternal Kingdom, a real, true kingdom with leaders and structure and teachings and writings. An organized church--with Apostles to lead it. This kingdom is His Body, this kingdom is His Bride. The beginning of an everlasting kingdom that started with Christ’s arms stretching out wide upon the Cross and embracing the whole world. Salvation for everyone had come. It is here and now--not in the future. All those who wish salvation must only come and accept the free gift of His Kingdom.

Jesus set up a system of teachings (doctrines) that we call the gospel and His Church was to take this very good news to the whole world, not just a hit and run gospel but setting up a church wherever His disciples went. They didn’t just leave a book and then tell the new converts that they were on their own--look to a book as your authority. No, a church was established, leadership was appointed. And these new satellite communities  joined with all the others to grow in grace, to serve God and others and to live the gospel that others may join the church also. The little growing communities were not left alone to thrive independently. 

They were joined together in unity of the Spirit, in unity of scripture and doctrine and evangelists often came and brought them news from other communities. The were bound together in heart and mind and they suffered for each other, sacrificed for each other and were in unity of baptism.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4: 4-6

 From the very second Christ established his church to this very day, he promised that he would protect it and to this very second now in time, His promise still remains. He vowed to His Bride as He was ascending into heaven that He would be with her to the end of the age. He didn’t promise to protect a spiritual philosophy or theology, or the Bible or the even the gospel, though He surely did that. But what He actually said was that He would protect His Bride, His Church, His Kingdom. 

She is the pillar and foundation of truth and by protecting Her, He in turn protected scripture and truth. (I Tim. 3:15) This protection would be guaranteed by the Holy Spirit given to her as a counselor, comforter and guide, so that the very gates of hell could not prevail against her. She has sheep with true shepherds, a sheepfold and a gate. Jesus is her shepherd, Jesus is her gate and He is with her, the church. And each individual Christian would receive the Holy Spirit through her. So that all would be one in Christ.

But what about Catholic corruption? Didn’t God abandon His church when she started corrupting the gospel?

Yes, God’s church makes mistakes. Yet, God protects His church even when she makes mistakes. 

Thanks for staying with me this far, because if you are like me when I was a Protestant, I would be yelling at the computer by now and would probably close this blog down and in agitation pray for my poor, deceived Catholic writer who could write such heresy.

But, this is what Catholic believe and have always believed. And agree or disagree you must understand this in order to understand their view on Salvation.

Catholics believe that to enter the Kingdom of God, this literal church... a real church, we enter through a real way. It is not an mental or emotional experience that places you in an invisible, spiritual church. We physically enter into salvation through Baptism.