Saintly matters - revisited.....

[Aymn27]

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/2750/

I don't know about you, but the idea that I should, somehow, have to contribute myself to my eternal status is a terrifying thought. Luther tried it and it drove him to despair. It is the common complaint of those who view the Christian life as one of constant work - no wonder Roman Catholics speak of guilt. And the notion of "saints" who have done more than the rest of us and so gain more love from God is thus appalling. We are all saints if we trust Christ and what He has done for us, not what He enables and empowers us to do for ourselves - as though there were something we could add to His majestic and finished work.



What are your thoughts on the article? Is the author correct or way off?

[Naomi4Christ]

I think the author wrote a good article. I agree with much of it.

What I found interesting was the type of discussion that followed this article. I only skimmed them, but this is the kind of discussion I would love to see here.

[ludovica]

David Ould is cool. I agree with him in essentials, but I do have a fondness for the Saints as a great inspiration and provide a good example. I do not think they are loved more though, if the Parable of the Day-Labourers is to be believed

[Aymn27]

David Ould is cool. I agree with him in essentials, but I do have a fondness for the Saints as a great inspiration and provide a good example. I do not think they are loved more though, if the Parable of the Day-Labourers is to be believed
care to expand? just curious as to exactly what you mean..

and btw WELCOME to STR!!!!

[Simon_Templar]

I'm not a big fan of egalitarianism in general. I usually find it particularly ungraceful when it rears its head in christian circles.

I find it quite an ironic situation that on the one hand, those who make the status of canonized saints would almost undoubtedly not consider themselves worthy of special honor, or special love. On the other hand those of us who respect their example consider them to be better than ourselves, more worthy, and more holy.

On the third hand you have the egalitarian running about denouncing us for thinking of these men and women of God as better than ourselves and looking up to them. They demand that we recognize them and ourselves on the same level playing field and admit that no one is truly better than we are.

So I ask you, who of the three above are following the admonition of God to regard others above ourselves? and who is not?

Is it we, we who regard the saints as our elder brothers and sisters, worthy of honor for the races they ran? Or is the saints themselves who were they offered such honor in life would almost certainly have refused it? Or is it the egalitarian doggedly insisting that everyone respect his equality and demanding that no one consider anyone higher than him?

To say that God has special love, does not lessen his love, it makes it greater. To say that God loved John the apostle and alone out of the twelve designated him "the beloved", the fact that God designated Daniel alone among the prophets "a man greatly beloved" in no way lessens the love that God has for all of us. The fact that God has given the twelve apostles positions of honor, and set up thrones for them from which they will judge the nation of Israel, doesn't lessen his regard for me.

I desire glory as much as the next man, possibly more. Achilles always was one of my favorite legends ;) But I like to think that I would be content to be a servant in the house of God. Just to be in that company, David, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the Apostles.. Michael, Gabriel, and Jesus Christ himself. If I am granted to sit by the door and watch, it'll be more than I deserve. I'll not grasp at equality in that assembly.

[Polycarp1]

One of the traditional reasons for saints was always as examples for the rest of us. Francis of Assisi shows us how to live out the Evangelical Counsels to their full extent. People from Aquinas to C.S. Lewis show us how to use intellect in service to God. Tikhon shows us how to be ecumenical while holding fast to firm beliefs. Louis IX and Kamehameha show us how to be a Christian leader of a secular state. And so on.

In denigrating some of the uses of hagiology it may be worth taking that point into account.

[ludovica]

care to expand? just curious as to exactly what you mean..

and btw WELCOME to STR!!!! Sure Matthew 20 1-16
I think it is quite clear that those who only did a little were given equal status with those who did a lot more work.
IE. it is that we came to Jesus that matters ....more than what lengths we go to to prove our devotion

Well thats what I think anyway

Thanks for the welcome!

[brightmorningstar]

Spot on and way off. Spot on in that if we trust Christ we trust His teaching which says we will trust in His salvation and be rewarded in heaven for what we do for the Kingdom. ie we have salvation thorugh Jesus Christ alone and we work out our salvation.

[brightmorningstar]

I agree. Our salvation is through Christ alone, but we have a reward for what we do for the Kingdom, we work out our salvation.

[ContraMundum]

I can't agree with this at all. In fact, I think the position he espouses misses the point completely and is indicative of the trap that the Catholic-Protestant debate has made for students of theology.

The Christian faith is equally about striving for holiness and perfection and about surrendering to God to recieve that gracious act that makes us holy and perfect. It is not either/or as Ould thinks, and the finished work on the cross is the provision for us to be made perfect and holy, not the completion of that objective. The cross is all sufficient, yet we are to actively seek to receive its graces.

Ould is hinting at the old Reformation paradigm of sinning saints, which is only a partial half-truth at best. While we are sinners, we can be saints in the truer sense of the word by seeking diligently after holiness. This is where he goes wrong. We do need God to empower us to becoming Christ-like and without it we are nothing and will remain "dunghills covered in snow" as Luther put it. Merely trusting in the "finished work of the cross" and leaving it at that is seeking justifying grace and yet denying sanctifying grace. It is seeking pardon but not rehabilitation, so to speak.

Holiness is to be sought after by surrendering to God's act of sanctifying grace through Christ's cleansing blood , which cleanses us from all sin, not just some.

Therefore, I have no problem with us honouring those who have gone before us who have diligently sought after this act of grace as examples on how we ought to seek after the same.

[Aymn27]

I can't agree with this at all. In fact, I think the position he espouses misses the point completely and is indicative of the trap that the Catholic-Protestant debate has made for students of theology.

The Christian faith is equally about striving for holiness and perfection and about surrendering to God to recieve that gracious act that makes us holy and perfect. It is not either/or as Ould thinks, and the finished work on the cross is the provision for us to be made perfect and holy, not the completion of that objective. The cross is all sufficient, yet we are to actively seek to receive its graces.

Ould is hinting at the old Reformation paradigm of sinning saints, which is only a partial half-truth at best. While we are sinners, we can be saints in the truer sense of the word by seeking diligently after holiness. This is where he goes wrong. We do need God to empower us to becoming Christ-like and without it we are nothing and will remain "dunghills covered in snow" as Luther put it. Merely trusting in the "finished work of the cross" and leaving it at that is seeking justifying grace and yet denying sanctifying grace. It is seeking pardon but not rehabilitation, so to speak.

Holiness is to be sought after by surrendering to God's act of sanctifying grace through Christ's cleansing blood , which cleanses us from all sin, not just some.

Therefore, I have no problem with us honouring those who have gone before us who have diligently sought after this act of grace as examples on how we ought to seek after the same.
You are such the Wesleyian!:thumbsup:

[ContraMundum]

You are such the Wesleyian!:thumbsup:
I'll take that as a compliment! :)

[Simon_Templar]

I can't agree with this at all. In fact, I think the position he espouses misses the point completely and is indicative of the trap that the Catholic-Protestant debate has made for students of theology.

The Christian faith is equally about striving for holiness and perfection and about surrendering to God to recieve that gracious act that makes us holy and perfect. It is not either/or as Ould thinks, and the finished work on the cross is the provision for us to be made perfect and holy, not the completion of that objective. The cross is all sufficient, yet we are to actively seek to receive its graces.

Ould is hinting at the old Reformation paradigm of sinning saints, which is only a partial half-truth at best. While we are sinners, we can be saints in the truer sense of the word by seeking diligently after holiness. This is where he goes wrong. We do need God to empower us to becoming Christ-like and without it we are nothing and will remain "dunghills covered in snow" as Luther put it. Merely trusting in the "finished work of the cross" and leaving it at that is seeking justifying grace and yet denying sanctifying grace. It is seeking pardon but not rehabilitation, so to speak.

Holiness is to be sought after by surrendering to God's act of sanctifying grace through Christ's cleansing blood , which cleanses us from all sin, not just some.

Therefore, I have no problem with us honouring those who have gone before us who have diligently sought after this act of grace as examples on how we ought to seek after the same.
Well Said!!

[ContraMundum]

Interesting point to make here. Ould's theological position (I like to call the "sinning saint" position) has one very real problem with it. It doesn't point people to any solutions. It is the underlying doctrine that leads to some people having a roller-coaster ride with sin in their personal lives. Because they do not believe that the blood of Christ can cleanse them of all sin they don't seek it. They struggle with sin's tyranny all their lives, when Christ's powerful all sufficient sacrifice has provided the double cure for their ailment of sin and it's power over our lives.

[Simon_Templar]

Interesting point to make here. Ould's theological position (I like to call the "sinning saint" position) has one very real problem with it. It doesn't point people to any solutions. It is the underlying doctrine that leads to some people having a roller-coaster ride with sin in their personal lives. Because they do not believe that the blood of Christ can cleanse them of all sin they don't seek it. They struggle with sin's tyranny all their lives, when Christ's powerful all sufficient sacrifice has provided the double cure for their ailment of sin and it's power over our lives.
I can testify to this. I suspect that many from my church background have similar experiences.

I was always raised to believe in holy living and sanctification. However, we always held such things as baptism and communion etc, to be primarily symbolic and conveying no real grace.

It was an interesting contradiction really, in my particular brand of the faith, we were taught the sola fide, sola gratia, sola scriptura views, and also taught that true faith produces sanctification. Yet we were never taught how. The result was although we were taught that we could not make ourselves righteous, the only way to live righteously was simply to do it by the effort of will etc. God has declared you righteous, so go and be righteous.

The result for me was that I constantly struggled with sin and lost. I really felt quite powerless to overcome the sins that beset me.
In my case I just sort of put it off with the idea, I'll figure this out eventually and everything will fall into place... but it did give me doubts from time to time as well.

I think that many people in that type of doctrinal camp face similar struggles and my guess is that it, to some degree has helped produce the growing popularity of teachings which essentially tell people that they don't have to over come etc.
People have struggled with it, and felt condemned etc and unable to succeed, so they gravitate to the teaching that says, you don't have to. Thus they continue to live in bondage.

For me, when I first came to understand some of the real work that God does in baptism, it was the beginning of a revolution. I instantly saw results in my life. Then again when I began to understand what God does through Communion, I found myself further enabled to resist temptation, and live free from the slavery of sin.

It is still a struggle and I still fail, but when I look back I it seems like I have come light years.

One of the aspects of this is that before I began to understand God's work in the sacraments, I felt (because I had been taught) that I had to believe that God would do this work simply out of the blue, in response to my faith. It would just happen. If it didn't happen, then I must not really have faith.

It is really ironic, but the real result was that those doctrines essentially brought me to a place where my faith really rested on me. Because, when I was taught that all that was necessary was simply faith, it conveyed the idea that if you had faith, it was pretty much a snap of the fingers, and you'd receive everything God wanted to give you. If you weren't receiving, then the problem was with you, thus you needed to work harder at having faith.

When I began to see that there is real work of God, real grace in things like baptism and Communion... it enabled me to really begin to put my faith back in God and his work. It makes his work visible in a way I guess.

Does that make any sense to anyone other than me :)??

[ContraMundum]

Simon, that is one great testimony!

[karen freeinchristman]

Does that make any sense to anyone other than me :)??
That makes really good sense! :)