Are The Jews Saved

All Children of God

God does not renege on His Promises, even when we fail Him with our infidelities and ingratitude. This also applies to the Jewish people, for God unlike fickle man keeps His Covenant even with an errant and 'stiff necked' people. God does not nor cannot revoke a Covenant, for The Triune Spirit is not capricious nor does God rely on man to feel validated.

Therefore the Promises and Covenants which God made to the Jews, also applies and incorporates the Gentiles. For if God were to break His Covenant with the Jews, what then would save us?

Are we so perfect so holy, that we have no need to rely upon God's Promises, that He will never forsake us?

For if we go on the premise that God will not keep His Covenant with Israel, because of their infidelities and rejection of the Promised Messiah, what hope then is there for the Gentiles?

Do we not also when we sin, reject the Messiah? Yet we hold as Truth that God will never abandon us. The confusion comes when we think we are loved because we are good, NO! We are Loved because God is Good!

Everything depends upon God and not man; therefore if God were to break His Covenant with the Jews, then He will also break His Promise to the Gentiles, which would then make Jesus' Sacrifice on the Cross, 'conditional'! Did Jesus apply any 'conditions' to St. Dismas who had NOT led a holy or meritorious life? Yet through Jesus' Sacrifice on the Cross He Promises this thief eternal Salvation with Him in Paradise. Did St. Dismas earn his Salvation or is it Gift from God Himself, not because we can earn or merit our Salvation but because of God's Saving Grace!

Is this what the Bible and the Catholic Church teaches us? That we are saved not because of Jesus Salvific Sacrifice and Atonement, in which He took our place and removed the sting of death from all who believe in Him. Has it come to the point where many believe we must 'earn' our Salvation or that we can merit our eternal life in the belief we are saved on our works alone and NOT on Christ Himself? Or that we as Catholics are saved by God simply because we term ourselves 'Catholic', in the belief that we are an 'elitist' group, therefore Salvation belongs to us and nobody else!

If this is the premise of what some consider to be true then they have nullified God's power and His Grace and negated Christ’s Passion!

For when God made His Covenant with the Jewish people, He did so in full knowledge that these same people would reject His Beloved Son, Jesus. For unlike man God has Predestination and He knows the outcome before He reveals and establishes His Covenants with the Israelites and also with the Gentiles.

There are some who believe that because God made these Promises in the Old Testament, therefore they have no relevance in the New Testament. In that Jesus, brought a New Law, this is correct, but Jesus also came to fulfill the Old Testament not to break it! Hence this is the reason why Paul asserts in his letter to the Romans that, "God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew"(Rom 11:2). Obviously Paul is referring to Jeremiah 31:34; and Paul continues to say, "As far as the Gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable."(Rom 11:28-29).

It cannot be stated more plainly than this, God does not break His Covenants, however unfaithful His children will be. For upon Jesus birth, death and Resurrection a Light was shone in which NO power can extinguish!

Peace of Christ to you ALL
 

Copyright © 2005 Marie Smith. All rights reserved.

Why Don't Catholics Read The Bible

We as Catholics hear this question a good deal. We are also asked, why won't the Church allow Catholics to read the Bible? Catholics do read the Bible, and are encouraged by the Church to do so. Many who accuse the Church of discouraging the faithful to read the Bible, both Old and New Testament, have no idea about the teachings and guidance of the Church in the reading of Holy Scripture. A great number of Popes and Saints have encouraged the reading of Holy Scripture by the faithful., and indeed, even today the Catechism of the Catholic Church encourages the reading of Holy Scripture by the faithful. Where the confusion lies in this idea of Catholics not reading the Bible, is that we as Catholics know that only the Holy Spirit through the Church is the sole interpreter of Holy Scripture for the guidance and inspiration of the faithful.
 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding Holy Scripture instructs the faithful:
 

123 Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. The Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism).
 

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself. Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament. As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.
 

133 The Church "forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ,' by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.'"
 

140 The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God's plan and his Revelation. The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God.
 

1437 Reading Sacred Scripture, praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Our Father—every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins.
 

2205 The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. In the procreation and education of children it reflects the Father's work of creation. It is called to partake of the prayer and sacrifice of Christ. Daily prayer and the reading of the Word of God strengthen it in charity. The Christian family has an evangelizing and missionary task.
 

The Saints and the Popes made these statements instructing the faithful to read Holy Scripture:
 

Saint Jerome--I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: "Search the Scriptures," and "Seek and you shall find." For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
 

Saint John Chrysostom (Doctor of the Church)--“To become adult Christians you must learn familiarity with the scriptures” 

“But what is the answer to these charges?‘I am not', you will say, ‘one of the monks, but I have both a wife and children, and the care of a household.’ This is what has ruined everything, your thinking that the reading of scripture is for monks only, when you need it more than they do. Those who are placed in the world, and who receive wounds every day have the most need of medicine. So, far worse even than not reading the scriptures is the idea that they are superfluous. Such things were invented by the devil.”
 

Pope St. Gregory I--“The Emperor of heaven, the Lord of men and of angels, has sent you His epistles for your life’s advantage—and yet you neglect to read them eagerly. Study them, I beg you, and meditate daily on the words of your Creator. Learn the heart of God in the words of God, that you may sigh more eagerly for things eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly joy”.
 

St. Isidore (Bishop and Doctor of the Church)-- “Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us... If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us." 
 

“Reading the holy Scriptures (the Bible) confers two benefits. It trains the mind to understand them; it turns man's attention from the follies of the world and leads him to the love of God. "
 

“Two kinds of study are called for here. We must first learn how the Scriptures are to be understood, and then see how to expound them with profit and in a manner worthy of them. A man must first be eager to understand what he is reading before he is fit to proclaim what he has learned."
 

“The conscientious reader will be more concerned to carry out what he has read than merely to acquire knowledge of it... Learning unsupported by grace may get into our ears; it never reaches the heart. It makes a great noise outside but serves no inner purpose. But when God's grace touches our innermost minds to bring understanding, his word which has been received by the ear sinks deep into the heart.”

Pope Leo XIII--“The solicitude of the apostolic office naturally urges and even compels us…to desire that this grand source of Catholic revelation (the Bible) should be made safely and abundantly accessible to the flock of Jesus Christ” 
 

“...For sacred Scripture is not like other books. Dictated by the Holy Ghost, it contains things of the deepest importance, which in many instances are most difficult and obscure. To understand and explain such things there is always required the 'coming' of the same Holy Ghost; that is to say, His light and His grace...It is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred... and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration is not only essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.”

Pope St. Pius X-- “Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels - not merely from time to time, but every day.”

Pope Pius XII--“Our predecessors, when the opportunity occurred, recommended the study or preaching or in fine the pious reading and meditation of the sacred Scriptures. ...This author of salvation, Christ, will men more fully know, more ardently love and more faithfully imitate in proportion as they are more assiduously urged to know and meditate the Sacred Letters, especially the New Testament...”

Copyright © 2005 Steve Smith. All rights reserved.