Many say this today. Therefore, they claim His work is infinite. I cannot
add. I do not need to add. I just believe.
And they add: Where in the Bible can you find anything else?
So they have two points: 1) Bible alone; 2) Jesus paid for all.
We will take up each of these separately.
1. As to the first: we reply: First, such people have no means of proving
which books belong to the Bible, or, are inspired. In the first centuries,
there were many gospels with name of Apostles on them--they are not
inspired. How can one know? There is only one way, and these people do not
have it.
So, before they can use the Bible, they must prove what is the Bible. They
cannot do that. So if they were logical, they would give up trying to use
the Bible.
Furthermore, to try to use the Bible without help is against the Bible:
The Second Epistle of St. Peter, speaking of the Epistles of St. Paul,
said in 2 Peter 3:16: "There are some things in them hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do
to the other Scriptures."
All Protestants try to claim Scripture is fully clear by itself: they need
no help. They contradict St. Peter. And they do twist things.
There is help: 2 Timothy 2:2 told Timothy: "What you have heard from me
through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to
teach others as well." --This is making provision for the ongoing teaching
of the church to keep people from twisting St. Paul and the other
Scriptures. Otherwise, Protestants have to imagine that Jesus said: Write
some books - get copies made--pass them out - tell people to figure them
out for themselves. -- Then we will fall as Peter warned they would fall.
Rather, Jesus Himself said several times: Luke 10: 16: "He who hears you,
hear me". In Mt 16:19: after saying He would give Peter the "keys" - a
sign of authority - Jesus added: "Whatever you shall bind on earth will be
bound also in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth will be loosed
also in heaven." There is a similar saying to all the Apostles in Matthew
18: 18: "Whatever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in heaven.
Whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Some
Protestants say this authority was given to all, and it means they should
preach justification by faith. There are three things wrong: 1) We know
historically how the words bind and loose were understood in the time of
Christ. They meant a decision by authority as to what was right or wrong.
2) These words bind and loose never meant preaching justification by faith
- no hint of that at all in the text or context. Two fine Protestant
scholars, W. F. Albright (in his day often called "Dean of American
Scripture scholars) and C. S. Mann, in their commentary on St. Matthew in
"Anchor Bible" (p. 198) wrote: "Peter's authority to 'bind' or 'release'
will be a carrying out of decisions made in Heaven. His teaching and
disciplinary activities will be similarly guided by the spirit to carry
out Heaven's will." 3) Peter is given the keys, a sign of authority. The
keys are not given to all, not even to all the Apostles. -- Therefore to
refuse to recognize the teaching authority to bind and loose of Peter and
the Apostles and their successors is to go against the Bible. The result
is what St. Peter warned of (2 Pet 3:16) : "The ignorant and the unstable
twist them to their own destruction, as they do also the other
Scriptures."
This same grant of authority is repeated at the Last Supper in John 13:20
to the Twelve: "He who receives the one I send receives me: he who
receives me, receives the One who sent me." He spoke only to the Apostles,
who were the only ones present. For people today to ignore this grant of
authority is to contradict the Bible.
Again not long before the ascension (Mt 18: 18-20): "All power is given
me in heaven and on earth. So go and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
you all days even to the consummation of the world." So Jesus commanded
them to go and teach -- He did not tell them to write some books, pass out
copies, tell people to figure them out for them selves. To do what would
result in what St. Peter warned about: The ignorant and the unstable twist
them to their own destruction as they do also the other Scriptures."
To suppose the Church was so far from having they help of Christ, which He
promised until the end of the world, that it for most of its existence it
could teach a false way to salvation - this makes nonsense of the promise
of Christ to be with them all days. And then to suppose an immoral man
like Luther was the one to put the church right- this staggers the
imagination.
The first christians understood this grant of authority well. In Acts 2:42
the people "devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles." They did
not establish Bible study groups to figure things out for themselves -
they would then "twist them to their own destruction." Acts 5:13 also
reports; "No one of the rest dared to join himself to them [the Apostles]
but the people magnified them."
He who rejects those to whom Christ gave authority to teach, and tries to
teach himself is indeed ignorant - ignorant of the Gospels -- and unstable
- and twists things to his own destruction.
In John 20, right after the resurrection Jesus told the Apostles: "Whose
sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, whose sins you shall
retain they are retained." This was spoken to the Apostles only. There is
no hint it meant just preaching justification by faith. Rather, the
Apostle would need to learn - by confession - the state of a soul, so as
to know whether to forgive or to retain.
2. Jesus paid for all. His merits are infinite. So I cannot add. I do not
need to do anything.
BUT: Even the Bible says there is more to it than that:
Romans 8:17: "We are heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided that
we suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified with Him." This is part of
the large "syn Christo" theme ("with Christ") of St. Paul. Cf. Rom 6:3-8
- we are baptized into His death, and so should rise with Him. Col
3:1-43: Since we have been raised up with Christ, we must think of the
things that are above. Cf. Ephesians 2:5-9.
So can we just settle down and do nothing, saying Christ paid for all?
St. Paul - if anyone ever took Christ as his Savior it was Paul - wrote in
1 Cor 9:27: "I chastise my body and lead it into subjection, so that after
preaching to others, I may not be rejected at the scrutiny." Even after
his heroic work for Christ, Paul knew His body might lead him into sin,
and so he could lose salvation. In 2 Cor 10 Paul gives a long list of
prefigurations, forecasts in action, of things in the NT. The original
people of God had these, but that was not enough--God was displeased with
and slew many of them.
Similarly Paul warned the Galatians (Gal 5:16-25) that they must follow
the Spirit or they do not belong to Christ (cf. Rom 8:9). And Paul gave
them two checklists in that passage to see which way they were living. It
as not enough just to have taken Christ as their Savior.
In 1 Cor 6:9-10 Paul gives a list of the chief great sins and sinners and
warns they who do such things "will not inherit the kingdom of God." So it
was not enough to take Christ as their Savior.
We note too the word inherit which Paul uses several times, in the context
of saying God is our Father. We indeed can get heaven without earning it,
it is our inheritance, since we by grace are transformed into children of
God and temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19 and 3:16) . But we could
earn to lose it: Romans 6:23: "The wages [what we can earn] of sin is
death, the free gift of God [what we do not earn] is eternal life."
How does this all fit with the fact that Jesus earned all forgiveness and
grace? Not difficult. It is one thing for Him to earn it, another for me
to be open to receive it. He of course can specify what is needed for me
to receive. He has done that through the Bible, which shows me how to be
open to receive.
What of the Mass? It does not, need not earn all forgiveness and grace.
That was done once for all on Calvary. But it obeys His command, "Do this
in memory of me." Why? He wanted us to have a place to join our
dispositions of heart with His, for as we explained, that is needed for us
to receive what He wants to give. We learn from Isaiah 29:13 what
sacrifice is. God complained that this people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me. So we see a sacrifice entails two
things, outward sign, and interior dispositions. The outward sign is there
to express and perhaps promote the interior. On Holy Thursday the outward
sign was the seeming separation of body and blood, to express His
obedience to the will of the Father that He should die the next day. On
Friday the sign was the physical separation of body and blood, still
expressing the same interior disposition of obedience. In the Mass He is
present with the same interior disposition of His Heart, so we may join
with Him, to become open to receive what He wants to give. It is a
sacrifice not that He dies again, or earns again what was bought and paid
for, but that He provides the means of giving out what He once paid for.
It is not that we earn salvation by our own power - not at all - but it is
His will that we join with Him - cf. the "syn Christo" theme, with Christ.
Insofar as we are not only His members but like Him we get in on the claim
He generated, as His members who are like Him. Cf. Romans 8:17: "We are
heirs together with Christ provided we suffer with Him so we may also be
glorified with Him." And cf. Mt. 16:24: "If anyone wills to come after
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Cf. also
Mt. 10:38.
