Tagged: Lamb of God

What I should have said 3

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Preface: This was really weird and hard to fathom what he was getting at. Apparently, Joe did not believe in hell. Anyway….

Joe Cipriani says:

Third and final comment:

Third Witness: John 3:16
The most beloved verse in Christianity is John 3:16, which states:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Definitely a beautiful verse.

Question: What does ‘perish’ mean?
— To die or be destroyed through violence
Question: What does it mean to ‘die’?
— To cease to exist

Actually, death has a very specific Biblical meaning. I’m surprised a man who declares himself to be guided by Scripture alone, does not know this. Here’s is how the Scripture defines death:

For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

James 2:26

So, “to die” is to have your spirit separated from your body.

In similar manner, Paul made this statement:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 6:23)

Life thru Christ. Death thru sin. Jesus said it. Paul said it. Yet what do vast majority of Christian denominations teach – Catholic and Protestant alike?

•Everyone has eternal life, the only difference is where one lives

•The lost will suffer for eternity burning in hellfire

•The saved will be in heaven

Uh, yeah, again, you haven’t read Scripture very carefully. Let’s look at what Jesus said to the sinners whom He called the goats in Matt 25.

41 [c]Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 44 [d]Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ 45 He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ 46 And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 25:41-46 NAB

ETERNAL fire, ETERNAL punishment.

Is there anyone that does not have at least one loved one or dear friend who has rejected Christ? And the saved will be in heaven looking across the gulf watching the lost suffer. And we are supposed to be happy?

You’d better start praying for your loved ones now. Better yet, you’d better come to the Catholic Church now, otherwise, it might be your Catholic relatives praying feeling sad for you.

So what is the character of God portrayed by Catholic and non-Catholic alike?

•God is love
•But reject My salvation
•I will burn you in hellfire for all eternity

And you wonder why so many reject Christianity? I continue…

God is love. He even loves those who rejected Him and decided they preferred to go to hell. Why do so many reject Christianity? Because they want the easy way out. They think they, like you, can make their own reality. But, in the end, God alone is the Truth.

GOD’S PRESENCE SYMBOLIZED AS FIRE
How many times in scripture is the presence of God revealed as ‘fire’? Here are just a few.

Our God is a consuming fire!
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•Moses and the burning bush (Ex. 3:2)
•Elijah taken up in a fiery chariot (2 Ki. 2:11)
•Lucifer (before becoming Satan) walked among the ‘fiery stones’ (Ez. 28:14)
•Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego cast into the fiery furnace (Dan. 3:19-20)
•Tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:3)

But my favorite is when Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu offered profane fire.

So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them… (Lev. 10:2)
So they went near and carried them by their tunics… (Lev. 10:5)

Fire destroyed them but their garments were not harmed. Hum…

You make no point at all. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Hell is eternal. But there is only one eternal Being. Who is He?

I leave you with this statement about the ultimate end to Satan. Ezekiel 28:18 states:

Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

But if you don’t believe Peter about Christ having died ONCE, why should you believe Jesus – who is God – who cannot lie – when He says people will perish and He will turn Satan into ashes.

Lol! I think I’ve proven, beyond a doubt, that it is Catholics who believe Scripture and you don’t.

Final Comments:
(A)When I write to blogs like this – my hope is that there may be one or two people who are truly seeking God’s truth. That they will take what I have written in prayer to God and study for themselves what is truth.

And I hope, that when I write to blogs like this, people will do what Scripture tells them to do and go to the Catholic Church for their answers about God.

(B)For the record, the Apostles did not change the Passover as you claim. They understood the principle of type/antitype. Types are stories and events in the Bible which are designed to teach us about God and the plan of salvation. Abraham – go sacrifice your son. Jesus to Nicodemus – as Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son of Man. The Exodus journey is the plan of salvation acted out with Christ as the Passover lamb. The Tabernacle (and subsequent Temples) were given in pattern as a remembrance of the Exodus deliverance. 

If you only knew what you were talking about. Yes, types and antitypes are a thing. But they lead to Catholic Teaching. Yes, Abraham – go sacrifice your son as the Father sacrificed His Son. And also, notice that God will provide the lamb. And notice what the Apostle says about the Paschal (Passover) lamb:

7 [a]Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough, inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Cor 5:7-8

Our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed – Who is that?

John the Baptist’s Testimony to Jesus. 29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God,[a] who takes away the sin of the world.

John 1:29
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Let us keep the Feast – What is that?


25 We should not stay away from our assembly,[a] as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.

26 [b]If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins 27 but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who rejects the law of Moses[c] is put to death without pity on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Do you not think that a much worse punishment is due the one who has contempt for the Son of God, considers unclean the covenant-blood by which he was consecrated, and insults the spirit of grace? 30 We know the one who said:

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay,”
and again:

“The Lord will judge his people.”
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:25-31
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

It’s the Mass.

(C)Jesus rebuked Nicodemus because he did not know a man must be born again – that is changed in character – to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jacob becomes Israel is just one of dozens of stories in the OT which teach this principle. Jesus rebuked Nicodemus for lacking the spiritual eyesight to know this.

Therefore, you should be careful. God has put the Catholic Church here to lead you to salvation. She is here to educate you on the Wisdom of God. But you keep thumbing your nose at Her.


10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the principalities and authorities[a] in the heavens.

Ephesians 3:10
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

And that’s what I should have said.

Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God

After many well thought out discussions about the events on Holy Week, a Protestant objects:

There is no Biblical basis for two separate killings of two different lives (of the lamb and of Jesus) being one sacrifice.

Seriously?

Do you have any evidence from the early Church Fathers of this non-Biblical notion?

After all those well thought out postings of the Holy Week timeline, I can hardly believe that you say such a thing. But, ….

Ok. Let’s go back to the Old Testament.

On Mt. Moriah, which would later be known as Golgotha, a father sacrificed his son in accordance with God’s will.

Genesis 22
And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. …

The son carried the wood for his execution, up the hill.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; ….

The son asked a question which was given a prophetic answer:

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

Just when Fr. Abraham was about to give up his son’s life:

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

And the lamb of God was provided for the sacrifice:

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

This was the first foreshadowing of the Lamb of God’s sacrifice on Golgotha.

John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Fast forward to the Passover where God said:

Exodus 12:3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

4 And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:….43 And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: There shall no stranger eat thereof:

44 But every man’s servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.

45 A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof.

46 In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof.

Scripture ties this back to:

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:

34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.

35 And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.36 For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.

The confirmation that the Apostles understood that Jesus is the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for our Christian Passover are in these words:

1 Corinthians 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

That also links the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God, to the unleavened bread of the Eucharist. As well as these words:

John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

But that’s another lesson. Suffice to say, Jesus is the Lamb of God who offered His life for the salvation of the world. Since Jesus is God, only His life would suffice:

Hebrews 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

Does that help?