Pax Christi

The case for faith in Jesus Christ ——————————————————————————

Forward

“So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase, according to our capacity, our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.” — J.R.R Tolkien

Why this book?

Why did Jesus die on the cross for us, and why is it important? The answer for both questions is Love! This answer while true, does not explain how we got from the question to the answer. This lack of deeper explanation has always bothered me. Actually it really unerved me! When you ask the average christian, what does it mean that Jesus died for me? Most do not know how to even adequately answer, much less muster a reason why it matters. The best most christians can do is say “because He did.”

That is like a parent saying to their child “because I said so.” That answer never satisfied me as a kid, and it really, really bugged me as an adult. But Jesus’ life, death, and ressurection is the most consequential thing that has ever happened in this world. We mark time by the birth of Him. The world was forever changed after He died, and litterally billions of people still believe in Him and follow his teachings today. But why is it that most people cannot explain why? The reason I was so frustrated was because I know that there has to be an answer.

I am not a writer by profession, I am a website developer, I work with cold-hard logic every day. If a program does not work it is because of bad input or in a breakdown in the logic of the code. In programming I have to find the break, and figure out why the logic has failed, and then write new code to handle the breakdown and get it working again.

So as a computer programmer, when I would confront this question about Jesus’ death and what it means to us today, I knew that there is a logic for believing it. In fact, now that I have written this book, I can say for certain, that the story of God and His love for His people is without question the most perfect and most complex code that has ever been concieved. Nevertheless, at the end of the day this program is just logic, and all I wanted to do was to tear it apart and figure out how it all works.

So that is what I did, I started looking, and reading the church fathers and the great minds of our faith, and applying their commentary to the actual text of the bible. It has taken me a long time to understand it well enough myself, that I could ultimately figure out a way to explain it to others, but I think that maybe I have, and that is what this book is designed to do.

In the world of programming we have two principles that are drilled into our heads over and over. These are the two great commandments of computer programming, and the quality of most people’s code is directly related to how closely they adhere to these principles:

The first principle is: DRY — “do not repeat yourself.” If you are about to write the same code twice you need to stop, put it in a separate function, and then call that new function from all of the various different places that it is needed in the code. The reason for this is first management. If you have to make a change to way that function operates, and the logic for that function is repeated all over the place then you have to find that logic in multiple places and repair it in each scenario. This can quickly become a nightmare in big projects with tens of thousands of lines of code. The other reason for this is testing…, this allows you to test your function one time, and know that it will perform exactly the same way everywhere it is called. Given certain input, you will always get specific output.

The second principle: KISS — “keep it simple stupid.” A long complicated function is less valuable than five simple efficient ones, if they ultimately accomplish the same goal. The basic premise of this axiom is that complexity causes problems. It is best to start with the most basic and simple functionality you can get, and then add complexity on as needed. If you have unused or unnecessary code, that code becomes a liability and a place from which errors, or even hacks can originate. If everything is super simple and efficient, then you are more likely to have code that will perform at a high level most of the time, and will be easily understood.

So why do I bring this up? I plan to use both these principles to break down what I have read and learned over the years and try to make the complex ideas of God’s mysteries more digestible and easier to understand.

Regarding the DRY principle: I will use the beginning part of the book to explain the fundamental ideas of the faith, creation, the fall and the story of salvation to give you a background on where all of the prophecy and progression of gods plan was leading to. When we then get to the later part of the book, where I conclude the argument, I will be refferring back to those ideas, and concepts, to bring context to the overall argument. These references will be needed so that you can understand the argument without having to repeat the same strings of text over and over. But what this means is that I am depending on your reading the whole book, so that I can make the argument from the beginning to the end. Skipping around is fine after you are done. I want you to use this book for reference and apologetics, but the first time you read it I think it best to go cover to cover.

Regarding the KISS principle: I will try to avoid complex terminology, and abstract theological and philosophical theories. Many people that write books about these subjects rely heavily on the abstract terms because doing so allows writers to express much larger concepts in very few words, but to the rest of us, that dont have a PHD from a divinity school, we get lost very quickly. That does not mean that we are not going to tackle extremely complex theological ideas, but I am going to do my best to do it in a way that the rest of us can understand.

Other than that I plan to use pure logic to explain the most complex plan that has ever been conceived, the plan for our redemption and eternal salvation.

Explanation & Structure.

This story of creation, salvation, and eternity are not something that can be explained in a couple sentences, or even paragraphs. The story contains a convoluted and intricate series of events, involving billions of people that span thousands of years of time. It takes time and understanding to find a common thread that links it all together. But that thread is there, Thomas Aquinas called it the golden thread (catena aurea), and it can be understood, and it can be traced through all of those people and through all of that time, and once you see it, it will change everything in your life.

This book attempts to lay that thread out in the form of an outline. Starting with the “argument in brief” This prologue is intended to layout the entire argument of the book in a few dozen simple paragraphs. I truly believe that this brief is enough for most people to understand that basic premise of the book. Because the logic is sound, and the verbiage is completely digestible. But the brief is not meant to be “Cliff’s notes” for my own book, but to be used as a primer to better understand what will be explored throughout the entire book. There is an old adage in presenting, it goes like this: “tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just said. This brief is the first part of that adage where I tell you what I am going to say…

Next, the headers of this book are essentially the outline of the “Argument in Brief,” laid out with full explanation and context. It lays out the whole argument, in nested outline format. The first division are the sections of God’s plan: Creation, Covenant, the Fall, Salvation, Redemption, Resurrection, Kingdom of Heaven and Justification. The chapter titles are the main parts of the arguments within each section, and the headings within each chapter layout points that will be used to support those main arguments. Finally, once you go from the table of contents to the actual chapter or sub-chapter, you will find the evidence and explanation to support the points of each of the arguments.

I also designed and intended this book to be used as field guide or reference for apologists, or others that want to bolster conversation or to discuss these larger ideas with people that are searching and trying to understand God, and his plan for them. Meaning you could sit down with a friend and start reading the “argument in brief”, and go down the list until your listener asks a question. Then you go to that chapter, and dig into the fuller explanation and evidence.

We have to go back to the beginning to understand the end

The human story is a complex story. It starts with creation, God created everything out of nothing, He created it out of love and for love, a love that must be shared and multiplied with the whole universe. Next the story is about life, and the toils and joys that it brings, to the whole world. Joy because of God’s love for us, and toils because of our inclantion to sin. And finally our story leads us to salvation, and the great sacrifice that God made for us in order to bring us back into full communion with Him while here on this planet, and ultimately into perfection in eternity with Him forever.

We will cover each of the elements of this story as we walk though the history of creation, life and salvation and explain what it means to be saved, and how gods plan leads all of us to that end.

The story of salvation is the story of mankind, it is the story of our free will, and God’s love for us despite our rejection of Him. It starts almost immediately after we are created when adam and eve fall into temptation and sin. It is weaved thoughout the books of the old testament, and the 6000 year history of our existence. It is culminated when Jesus dies on the cross, and it comes to its fullest fruition when we die and are brought into eternity, hopefully with God, forever.

The whole point of the bible, is to understand this journey, and why it matters to you and your life. So that is what we are going to do, we are going to walk through all of these stories, pull out the relevant parts, and hopefully finally understand the end by explaining how everything before that led up to this moment right now where you are reading these words, in the battle of the church millitant for the eternity of all of our souls.

We end by giving you a glimpse of what awaits in the next life. The torments of hell, the fires of purgatory and the Kingdom of Heaven. We will discuss what awaits you in each of these places, and why, in the end, the reason for everything is salvation. Salvation is the prize that Jesus won for us on the cross, it is the reason for why we are here in this world right now, and it is the only goal or objective that we ultimately need strive for. Because the result of that objective, the fruition of that goal is eternal peace.

Peace in Christ

That is why I named this book “Pax Christi” which means “Peace in Christ.” Peace is what we are all ultimately looking for, it is the deepest yearning of our hearts, and it is the answer to all of our questions. This peace cannot be found in this world, it is only in christ that we will all find this peace and our greatest happiness. St. Augustine once said “Peace is the tranquility that comes from order.” This order that he refers to is not of this world, it is the divine order of God, the order that holds all things in existence and brings us all to completeness. It is the order of the universe that binds and connects all things, and it is the order that allows us to know love, feel joy, and experience beauty. It is the order that when you submit to it, you with find perfect happiness, and you will want for nothing. This order is what brings true peace, peace in Christ.

This is the peace that we wish each other in mass, this is the peace that we hope that our families and children will find, and this is the peace that I sincerely wish for you, and everyone in your life.

That is the point of this book…, to help you to find this peace. But in order to do so, you must confront who Jesus was, what he taught, and what it means that He died for you. And when you are done reading, it is my hope that you will be able to answer all of those questions for yourself.

This is not going to be easy, this is probably the most complicated thing I have ever tried to do, and it is going to require participation and study by all who read these words. But if it helps just one of you to come to better understand Jesus and His gifts for us, then I think it is worth it. Lets get started.

A humble petition

Thomas Aquinas once wrote: "We can't have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves." This is a simple axiom, It simply means that you must first open yourself up to the possibility that it might be true, before the evidence that supports that truth will even seem possible. If you approach the concept of God, His existence, and the part that He plays in our lives, with the attitude that God is a fantasy and that the people that believe in him are mentally unstable, then there is literally nothing I can say that that would change your mind. Thomas Aquinas again, writing on this point: "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

To extend this argument further, consider a stick of butter, and a lump of clay. Both moist and soft to the touch, but if you place them both out in the heat of the desert sun, one will turn into a puddle and the other will become hard as a rock. It is the same sun, the same level of humidity, but the result is completely different because of the nature of the two substances are disposed differently to the of heat and ultraviolet light of the sun.

This is the same with god’s grace. It falls like drops of rain onto each of us all equally. It has the same power to equally affect and change our lives, but some of us put up an umbrella (of sin) that blocks or deflects that grace from finding its way into our hearts. Furthermore, even if there is no umbrella, the affects of habitual sin, can harden our nature (like the clay) so completely, that it makes it impossible for the grace of god to penetrate and do its work in us…, to soften us…, and make us open to the effects of his work in our lives. If your disposition towards god is like the clay, then the grace that god is giving you will do the opposite. It will harden you and make you impervious to His love and desire for your life.

But Humans are not inanimate objects. Our natures are not fixed and set in stone, we can change our nature. We can fold up our umbrella, and put it away, meaning we avoid sin. We can open our minds up to the possibility that god is real and open a crack in our hard outer shell, and allow those rays of light of gods grace to penetrate, and slowly soften us from the inside out.

But that choice is yours. And it starts right now. Will you open your mind to the possibility that god exists and wants the best for your life. Will you consider, maybe for the first time, that all of this could be true, and that God and His mission in this world can be understood with logic and reason? If you can then I think this book can help you begin to understand something that might have been totally elusive to you before this moment. If not, then I am truly sorry, you will need to come to terms with that first. Because if you do not approach this book with the possibility that it could be true, then there is nothing that I can say that will convince you otherwise.

Will you take this journey with me? I sincerely hope the answer is yes! A universe of awe and wonder awaits… just turn the page!

The Argument in Brief

INSERT THE BRIEF HERE…

Creation:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. — John 1:1

Chapter 1: Nothing existed before God, and nothing exists without god

God Really Exists

• In order to build on the premise and gods divine plan for us, we need to start by laying some ground work for how we know that god is real, and then we can talk about how this affects us his creation.
• So to begin, I think it is best to review how the greatest minds of the christian tradition have come to understand god’s existence.
• The pinnacle of that thought is summarized in Thomas Aquinas and His scholastic theology
  • where he reconciled all of the religious and greek thought of the time, and combined them into his 5 proofs for gods existence…
  • this is all theology 101, but it is extremely important to understand because everything else is based on it, and flows out from it. So please read this and work to understand it, because doing so will make the rest of the book make more sense.
  • act and potency
    • act is the thing that causes change, heat pressure, time, etc. THis is also the creator that makes new things out of other things.
    • potency is the potential for something to change. A cup of baking flour has the potency to become a cake, but not a cat or a dog.
    • Act can exist without potency, but potency cannot exist without act. You can have an idea in your head about what a triangle looks like without having acted to make one. but a triangle has not potency unless someone acts to make it. Here is another example of how these two work together to make change.
      • Example: putting butter and clay out in the hot summer sun
      • sun acts on both with heat
      • the butter melts and the clay hardens because of the potential of each of their different and unique natures, but the act is the same
    • another example is grace god’s grace is available to all, and we have the potential to recieve that grace, but only can do so based on our nature, and willingness to allow that grace to come into us.
  • Form, matter
    • matter is the constituent parts that make up a thing,
    • form is the power that holds those constituent parts into a discernable form or structure.
    • form (which is a type of act) can exist without matter (as an Idea), but matter cannot exist without form,
      • because even at its most simple state (like a proton, nuetron, or quark), it is still some thing that is being held together by a form.
      • The only exception is prime matter which is only conceptual and has no form, and only existed at the beginning of all time, more on that later.
  • the 4 causes
    • The change (discussed above) of all things in creation consist of 4 causes and all 4 act on the thing to make it change and take form.
    • the 4 causes of all change are
      • material - the constituent parts that makes up a thing.
      • formal - The form that the thing takes when creation is comleted.
      • efficient - The creator that takes all of the matter and forms it into that thing
      • final - The reason and purpose for why that thing was made in the first place.
    • use example of making a cake to explain each.
  • the 5 proofs.
    • and so we finally come to the 5 proofs of God’s existence.

God is existence itself and all things are held in existence because of Him

• So the logical response to the concept of the unmoved mover, the uncaused casue or the uncreated creator, is to understand that god is existence itself.
  • How can god be existence itself?
  • It means that nothing exists without Him, and everything is held in existence because of Him.
• To understand this better we have need to look at how we exist and how we are created by him.
• Aquinas describes all person’s unique existence as a combination of Ese and essentia.
  • “ese” is the existence that we get from god, and what we share in common with him, often referred to as the image of god that is placed on our soul at birth.
  • “essentia” is the essence of what we are as a human form, and what makes us who we are as a spiritual being
• What makes God utterly unique and different than all of his creation, is that his “ese” and his “esentia” are the same thing. Completely inseperable.
• God is, was, and ever shall be.
• There is nothing that came before Him
• there is nothing that exists without Him.
• He is the source of all existence, and as such he is existence itself.

God reveals His presence in all things through goodness, truth and beauty

• the trancendentals are the result of the outpouring of God’s Grace, and we are most happy when we direct our lives towards these ends, and most sad when we seek the opposite of the these transcendentals.
• They only come from god, everything else is a corruption of these good, true, and beautiful things.
• describe goodness truth and beauty and ultimately perfection. And how they are the actualization of aquinas’ four causes
• The psalm reads that the heavens and earth proclaim the glory of god
  • this is truly the best proof of his existence…, simply the existence of everything else.
  • All things hold a glimpse of god’s true nature, and all things good true and beautiful lead us to better understand him.
• once you understand that God exists, and that He created everything good true and beautiful, and that holds it all in existance through his divine will…, we must then explore what He actually created and how helps us to understand him better.

Chapter 2: God is the creator of all things

The pinacle of god’s creation is life, and the mind, body and soul of His creatures

• Our bodies are just matter that is held together by the form of our souls, but our souls are also the source of the intellect.
  • define mind, body and soul here.
    • show how they directly connect with the intellect will and passions.
      • mind is intellect
      • body is passion
      • soul (heart) is the will
  • discuss aristotles analogy of the horses, chariot, and charioteer. and how they connect to virtue.
• the intellect (or mind) is the understanding of higher things (and only found in higher ordered creatures). It is the recognition of self and the ability to choose between different choices
• we understand that Matter is the lowest form of creation in that it only contains potency. Thus, intellect is the hightest form of creation because it is only act.
• This is the highest form of life because it is only in this form that we can have relationship with god. Rocks cannot do that, but we can.
• Lets look at all of god’s creation, and how it shows and informs this reality.

First He created the angels

• Strickly speaking we dont know exactly when the angels were created but the bible and church fathers give us clues, there are two theories
  1. Angels were created at the very beginning of creation, either simultaneously with the material universe or slightly before. This is supported by Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” — Heavens here referring to the choirs of angels and the universe of stars and planets (aka the big bang).
  2. Church Fathers such as Augustine, Aquinas, and others place the creation of angels within the first day of creation, most likely when God said, in Genesis 1:3 “let there be light”
• Regardless of the interpretation the angels were made either before everything or within the very first microsecond of the first day of creation. Since angels are outside of time it is not possible to understand any more fully than this.
• Nevertheless, we know that God created Lucifer first, the greatest of all the angels, His name means “light bearer,” and he was made to bring the light of God into the whole universe.
• Next he created all of the 9 choirs of angels. And created them to tend to the universe he would make, and for some to be servants and gaurdians of man.
• Angels are not like us, They have an mind and will but no body. They exist outside of time, and are born with supreme intellects, and they don’t need to study or learn anything. They know everything they need to know to live out the will that god had planned for them.
• But they were made with a free will and an intelect that contained all of the knowledge and wisdom they would ever need to choose right from wrong, and to accept or reject what God gives them.

Next He created all of reality - the universe of planets and stars, and most importantly earth

• He created the universe of stars and planets, and all reality came into being at the moment of the big bang.
  • the big bang is a theory by George Lemetre (a catholic priest) and it is completely consistent with catholic teaching.
  • The theory is based on the long tradition of teaching on the subject by our church fathers.
  • this is what they called the scholastic view of reality. It is derived from aristotle and thomas Aquinas’ teaching on the origin of the universe.
  • Here is how that happened.
    • There was nothing but void, and formless deep
    • Then god filled the universe with “primary matter,” not “nothing,” but “no-thing”
    • then he said “let there be light,” and the laws of physics and science were imposed on the primary matter
    • They started becoming atoms, and molecules, and eventually organic matter.
    • The organic matter began to take form, by gods hand, as asteroids, and planets, and suns.
    • Then on at least one of those planets the conditions were just right for life.
    • And that leads to the next phase of creation
• The universe of planets and stars a planets filled with mountains and deserts and snow are merely matter, they have a body at most, but no will or intellect
• These lifeless things have no free will and no ability to resist gods will, they are completely reactive, all potency no act.

Next he filled the earth with plants and animals

• Plants and animals have a body and a will, but unlike angels, they have no mind.
• Plants and animals are simple beings that have bodies, and a will to live, but they have no intellect with which to ponder higher things.
• Use aquinas here to describe the difference between plant and animal souls, vegetative versus sensitive souls
• While these creatures are alive and have a will they too, like above with the universe of planets and stars, they do not have the ability to reject gods will for their lives, they must do what they were programmed to do.

Finally, He created Man in His own image and made him free

• All of these creations, everything that proceeded this moment was simply setting the stage for the arrival of man.
• Man is the pinnacle of Gods creation.
• Man is unique in all of the universe in that the soul of a man, contains a mind, a free will, and a body.
  • a mind makes us like the angels and god
  • a body makes us like the animals and plants,
  • a free will makes us free to choose to love, and free to reject our creator.
  • “We are not two things but one thing. We tend to think of the soul as a kind of spirit, like an angel, and the body as a kind of biological organism, an animal. But we are not an angel plus an animal, or an angel inside an animal. We are neither angels nor animals. We share our spirit with angels, and we share our organic body with animals, but our spirits are not pure spirits—they are the souls—and our bodies are not just animals but they are the bodies of persons, and animals are not persons.” — Peter Kreeft
• We were given all of the ability of an angel to ponder higher things, and we were given a body with which we could enjoy the pleasures and joys that come with the lived life, and physical experience of existence.
• But what truly makes man special is that man was made in gods image, and he gave us everything as a gift, and for us to steward and protect.
• what does it mean to be in the image of god?
  • recalling what was said about esse and essentia, gods image is that part of our existence that comes from him, the existence that we share with Him
  • It means that we have an imprint on our soul that comes from god Himself.
  • A part of us that yearns for connection with Him, the source.
  • That image allows us to enter into relationship with Him, to enter into love, both given and received.
• Man was given everything he will ever need in order to live in perfect happiness. But we were made free to choose.
  • we have freedom to accept that love, and to enter into a relationship with the God of the universe
  • we also have the freedom to reject it, reject Him, and choose our own will for our lives.
  • love is not real love unless it is free.
• This order that comes from God’s image on our souls, is His own Law of morality and Ethics. ---- MAYBE MOVE THIS — DONT KNOW WHERE YET
• man is not evolving he is degrading from the perfection of creation
  • hugh owen describes the genetic code and how mutations break it down, and dont evolve it.
  • Meaning that mankind is not eloving to an uber mench, but devolving away from the perfection that was what adam and eve were in the garden.
  • When you see the simple difference you understand the difference between evolotion and creation.
  • evolution is a belief that we dont need god and are evolving into gods,
  • creation tells the story of how sin destroys gods creations and leaves us needing a savior.

Chapter 3: God ordered the universe and all living things with law

Eternal, Natural, Divine, and Human Law

• These laws come from the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, in his writing in the summa…
• Eternal Law — This refers to God's rational purpose and plan for all things, encompassing the entire universe and its order. It is considered the ultimate source of all other laws.
  • In eternal law we understand that we cannot have a squared circle. Things like that cannot be, because they would cause chaos and disorder in our lives, and He does not want that for us.
    • The mark of this law is stability and predictablilty.
    • He wants the whole universe to be stable and predictable so that we can know Him in his Divine nature
    • Chaos is the opposite, and only leads to division and suffering.
• Natural Law — This is the part of the Eternal Law that is accessible to human reason and conscience, guiding individuals toward their natural ends and purposes. It is considered the basis for human morality and ethical decision-making.
  • So too, in Natural law He cannot force us to be moral, ethical, or to love against our will, to do so would be no different than the squared circle, it would be simply unnatural, and total slavery.
    • The mark of this natural law is Freedom.
    • He wants us to be free so that we can choose, of our own will, to love Him in the way He loves us.
• Divine Law — This refers to the specific commandments and laws revealed by God, often found in religious scriptures like the Bible or the Torah. It provides a framework for human behavior in relation to God and the spiritual realm.
  • Divine law provides specific moral guidance, clarifying and reinforcing what is already known through natural law. It also addresses matters beyond the reach of human reason
    • Marked by the 10 commandments and the teachings of Jesus. AKA the deposit of faith.
    • Divine law provides us a way to know what is right and wrong outside of our own intellects and understandings.
• Human Law — These are the laws and regulations enacted by human societies and governments to govern their members and maintain social order. They are often seen as a specific application of natural and divine law principles within a particular context.
  • Human laws are specific and can vary across cultures and time periods. They must be consistent with natural law and strive to promote the common good aka divine law.
    • Marked by our civilization’s legal systems. They are made to constrain those that do not observe the other laws.
    • Are used to maintain order, protect citizens, and promote the flourishing of society

These laws govern all things in the universe, and all things are obedient to His divine will.

• from atoms to commets to stars, or plants of animals all things obey gods law… This is the order of the universe.
  • Their mind could disobey, but becuase of their perfect knowledge of god and his existence their choice is irrevocable.
  • matter, rocks and stars, mountains and seas are all pure body, they have no soul, they have no will, they can be changed by interactions with other bodies but they can do nothing to change or transform themselves.
  • But most important thing here is that they have a will to live, and physical body, they dont have a mind, and their obedience is absolute. they cannot decide to disobey god. They can only live, grow, and eventually die.
• But humans are the only part of creation that can disobey god’s will for us. The angels share this privilege, they can disobey god’s will for their lives, but they exist outside of time, and so their disobedience is different than our own.
  • Peter Kreeft wrote - “When God commands anything, it obeys. In creation, nonbeing obeyed and gave way to being, and darkness obeyed and gave way to light, and chaos obeyed and gave way to order. Nothing in creation can resist its Creator. The only exception is human free will, which is the only thing in the universe that disobeys the divine command.” - then he followed up with… “That is why it is a far greater thing for God to make saints out of sinners than for God to make the entire universe out of nothing, for nothingness has no power to resist him, but we do.”

But these laws also govern God Himself - they do not limit Him or reduce His infinite power - they are limitations He places on Himself because of love

• The natural objection to this are the omni paradoxes. If god is omni-whatever… how can he be limited in anyway. The common formulation of this is… “what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” Or “Can God make an object that He cannot lift.”
• The answer is not what you might think…, the nature of God is to limit Himself. He is all of those omni’s…, He can do anything He wants, He has no limitations of any kind. But He constrains himself out of love for us, and His will to create order in our lives where there would otherwise be chaos, and to bring stability, where everything else is uncertain. He does this because that is the nature of love, and that is who He is.
  • so can god make a object that he cannot lift?
  • in this world maybe, because He wants the world to be stable and predictable so that we can know Him in his Divine nature.
  • but in heaven, outside of time, he has no limitations.
• He wants us to be free so that we can choose, of our own will, to love Him in the way He loves us.
• He made us free because of His love for us. And His love for us is also the reason He limits Himself.

Chapter 4: God ultimately created everything for love

God is love in all its forms

• St. Bonaventure tells us that the 2 angels on the ark represented gods two names.
  • Recalling gods first name “my name is I am,” or “to be,” He is existence itself
  • we must also consider his second name “love” - God is love
  • If you want to know what the “to be” that god is in his first name, it is love…, his second name.
• but in order to understand this love we must first understand the different kinds of love, and how they interact with each other.
• There are many kinds of love, greeks have 8 types. God is all of them.
  • Philatua
  • Pragma
  • Ludus
  • Mania
  • Eros
  • Philia
  • Storge
  • Agape
• All love must start with self love, because self love is recognizing the image of god inside yourself and the goodness that comes with that understanding.
• love is a progression from self love to selfless love.
• All of the loves are ultimately in the end an exchange with agape, but in different and lower ways. Something is always held back in these other relationships. But marriage, and the exchange of eros with agape, is the highest form of relationship because it most closely mirrors the divine love exchanged in the trinity, and is thus the closest thing that we humans have to understanding that relationship.
  • a full explanation of these love interactions and progressions needs to be explained in relation to my graphic. - Focusing particularly on the exchange of eros and agape.
  • Need to include my graphic of the love relationships here.
  • ![]()
• The degree of your love is measured by how deeply you participate in this exchange of love giving completely, and recieving completely.

Love is a relationship, fully given and fully received

• God is a Trinity…, the perfect representation of love the giver, the reciever the and the gift given. The trinity of father, son, and HS, perfectly represents this. Explain this using Augustine’s explanation.
  • God considers Himself (Philatua), and fully and completely loves (agape) that thing He is considering, that is Himself.
  • that thing is the second person of the trinity, who receives that love completely from the Father (eros).
  • The Son then looks back and considers the Father and loves Him back completely (agape), and the Father receives that love completely (eros).
  • And that love that is shared back and forth is the third person Holy Spirit.
• God in His most fundamental form is Love, fully and completely given and recieved.
• But perfect love given and recieved cannot be contained it must be shared
• Thus, everthing that exists, is the result of this freely given and freely received love.
• But all love must contain the three elements, the giver, the reciever, and the love of the H.S. shared between them.
  • Also known as the Lover, the beloved, and the love shared between them.
• If it does not have all three, it is not love.
  • Love without a gift exchanged, is selfish pleasure.
  • Love without a recipient, is just feelings.
  • Love without a giver is just luck.

Love is not love unless it is free

• But most importantly, Love can only ever achieve this highest form of relationship, if the giver and the receiver are free to give and free to receive and the gift given is a free gift.
• This is called Free will, and without it God’s shared love would be false, and we would all be slaves.
• So in order for us to love and be loved by god, we also have to be free to reject him.
• But the main point is that all of this was created because god wanted to share the love of the trinity with you and me, and as many others as He could get to listen.
  • this life of the trinity is call zoe in greek, and means perfect eternal life in the trinity
  • This life was impossible for humans because of sin, that is until god invited us into it through Jesus, and his sacrifice on the cross.
• Thus all of that creation, was made specifically for you, and waits in anticipation for how you will respond.

God does not need us, but we need His love

• he is perfect in eternity
• Explain what Frank Sheed said about eternity.
• our prayers do not change him or improve him in any way.
• love is a theological virtue, and we cannot have it in our lives until we first open our self up to the source of all love and first give it away.
• like yoda tapping into the force and shooting lightning from his fingers
• this is what JP2 called the law of the gift.
• Vatican 2 had a message on this. Saying that “man cannot truly know himself until he makes a gift of himself.”

Love when shared is not divided but multiplied

• And so it is with our love.
• If I give you a piece of my pizza, I have one less slice for myself. But if I give you love, and share my joy we both have more than we started with.
• by our given and recived love we would both have more
• When we give our love to god we are creating something completely new in the universe.
• There is nothing in the entire realm of existence that we can offer God that He does not already possess, except our love.
• but like I said in the previous chapter…,
  • It is not love unless it is not freely given and recieved,
  • and love by its very nature has to be given away, it is imperfect when it only resides in a single person.

Love must be shared and needs to be given away

• This is why god created everything…, that each of our joys (Gods & Mine) would be made complete.
  • If I dont love God, He lacks for nothing, because he is perfect.
  • But if love is truly magnified when shared, then that means that when I share my love with God, then that means He has more love then He would without me.
  • And that love is then returned to me and then sent out to others, and thus all of our love is made complete.
  • this applies to all good things, faith, hope, charity, joy, etc…
  • we both are all better off, and thus we are both made complete.
  • Consider that for a moment, your love has the ability to make God more complete!
  • If I reject god and keep my love from Him, I don’t take anything away from Him. He is perfect and I cant change Him in any way, but my love when shared with god, makes us both better and more complete.
  • consider the example of the symphony orchestra.
    • we are all members of gods symphony in heaven, we were all created to be part of the music that He is conducting.
    • each and everyone of us has a part to play a part that only we can do, and a part that God made us to do.
    • If we do not play that part, we make the symphony slightly less perfect, and the absence will be noticed.
    • But if play our part, and we do it well we make the symphony that much better.
    • We bring something to it that god cannot do on his own. and that makes God’s joy complete.
    • You can do something for God, that only you can do, and He wants more than anything for you to do it.
• God delights in our love, and our love helps to make His joy more complete.

Covenant

I will maintain my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting covenant, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. — Genesis 17:7

Chapter 5: The fullest expression of love is covenant

A covenant is an unbreakable bond, a new creation under God

• A covenant is not a contract it is an exchange of persons.
  • I give myself completely to you, you give yourself completely to me
  • A new creation is made. Fused together and united
  • a covenant elevates a relationship to a higher level.
    • If two people love a hobby or an activity that is great, and they have that in common. there is no commitment
    • if they do that thing or participate in that activity together, their love for their common instrest will bring them closer together, and bond them in friendship.
    • If they pledge themselves to each other in the name of that common interest that is a contract.
    • If they pledge themselves to each other and that common interest is God then that is a covenant.
• covenants required a sacrificial offering and/or with the consumption of the offering.
  • See EXODUS 24:3–8 for an example of the sprinkling of blood, on the alter representing god and on the people binding them together.
  • A discussion of the offerings made to god is important here. Specifically the 5 types of offerings
    • Attonement offerings
      • Guilt
      • Sin
    • Voluntary
      • Burnt
      • Peace
      • Grain (Todah or highest form of offering) — Example: Alms to the poor is a thank (todah) offering, because you are giving from the gifts that god has given you. Thanking him for his blessings.
    • Leviticus 7 tells us the requirements of a covenant. It must be a sacrifice (blood or grain or drink), it must contain an oath, and the sacrifice must be consumed either as a meal by the parties involved or consumed by god in fire and sometimes both.
      • Example: This is why marriage is always celebrated with a meal.
    • The blood of the sacrifice in atonement has several meanings,
      • it meant kinship, family shares the same blood.
      • it meant death, that you would die if you ever broke the covenant vows.
      • and it meant sharing a meal of the sacrifice, which again is what family does.
    • the bread or cereal were offered as a sacrifice of thanks giving, and it was the highest form of sacrifice in the jewish religion, and a foreshadowing of the eucharist.
• Finally the sacrifice was sealed with an oath.
  • Oaths are very important…, For the jewish people oaths were taken only for the purpose of covenants.
  • An oath would call down God’s participation into the covenantal union being established.
  • Meaning, those that fulfilled the oath would be blessed by God and those that broke the oath would be cursed by God.
  • An oath required, faith and love and commitment, and it was understood that it was not to be taken lightly.
  • God gave this Law directly to Moses on the mountain, “Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.”
  • An oath, if made, can only be made in the name of God, anything else will not be recognized.
  • Anything less should be considered false, deceitful, and from the evil one.
  • St. Cornelius of Lapide said that the temptation to make a false oath,could either come from the devil directly trying to tempt you into perjuring yourself, or maybe even personal vice, or irreverence toward Gods law and his commandments.
  • In any case being an oath-breaker was punishable by death, and so by making an oath in the name of heaven, or earth, or even your own head, would not hold you to that same standard and consequence.
• A covenant always has four elements
  1. The “covenant”
     • consisting of a mediator (the person God makes the covenant with)
       • who serves in a covenant role (aka whom the mediator, represents).
       • And the “form” that the participants take as a result of the covenant
       • The covenant is then ratified (like mentioned in the previous section) by
         • a sacrifice,
         • an oath, and
         • a consummation.
     • The “sign” by which the covenant will be celebrated and remembered.
     • The “conditions” (or curses) of the covenant.
       • “It not a curse because God wants us to get back at us for breaking the covenant, it is to get us back to him after we do so.”— Scott Hahn (Paraphrasing).
     • The “blessings” promised in the covenant.

God wanted intimacy with us, to be connected with us in every way, and that way was through the covenant of marriage

• there are three ages, and each one represents a stage of god’s attempt to bring us back into communion with us.
  • an age is a measurement of a long period of time.
  • An age is a time when history was one way and it changes to another
  • The thing that marks the change of an age is usually something historic, or earth changing.
• The first is age of the Father
  • it starts with the beginning of creation, from adam and eve to the birth of Jesus.
  • This age reveals the creation of all things, including man, and The gift of free will.
  • This age marks the arrival of sin, and the fall of the angels and man from God’s grace
• The next is the age of Jesus,
  • It lasts for the entirety of Jesus’ life
  • This age reveals the teaching of divine law, and the saving of man from their sins
  • This age marks the abolishment of slavery to sin, and the persecution of the evil one, and the opening of the kingdom of heaven to those that love god
• The last is the age of the Holy Spirit
  • It lasts from Jesus’ ascension to the end of time.
  • It reveals the indwelling of the holy spirit, and connection of the whole body of christ in one universal church.
  • It is marked by the eucharist, and the real presence of the lord in our daily lives.
• in the first God was the almighty father above us. In the second Jesus walked beside us. In the third the HS and Eucharist dwells inside us.
  • “The goal of love is always intimacy, and God becomes more and more intimate with us as he reveals himself in three stages: first, the Father reveals himself in the Old Testament; then, the Son, in the New Testament; and then, the Holy Spirit, in the Church. First God is above us and then he is with us and then he is in us. First, he is outside us; then, he is beside us; and finally, he is inside us.” — Peter Kreeft
• all of salvation history and the three ages were designed to get us to forgo our attachment to sin and choose god instead.
• he achieved this increased intimacy through the covenants.

God said I will be your God and you will be my people, and He sealed His promise in a covenant

• salvation history is a series of attempts that God has made to bring us closer to him.
• but it is also represents the stages by which we individually go from sinner to saint in our own lives.
  • Ignatius Study Bible — “Salvation can be described in terms of the past, present, and future. It is past with reference to Baptism, which saves us from the filth of our sins (1 Pet 3:21). It is a present reality when we allow grace to make us steadily more virtuous and holy (1 Cor 1:18). It is a future hope that we will for ever live with the Lord in glory (Heb 9:28)”
• So we can learn from them and we can use them to guide our lives from sinners to saints.
• Let’s begin with the first one in the garden with Adam and Eve.

Chapter 6: 1st Covenant - The Adamic Covenant

Setting: Adam and Eve lived in Heavenly perfection, without sin, but with free will

• They were born free of sin, protected from evil and given everything they could ever want or need.
  • It is widely held that adam and eve were created without sin.
    • They did not know sin, they were born free of it.
    • but They were not impeccable, meaning they were not protected from ever sinning like mary was.
    • But their sinlessness is confirmed by the fact that they recognized that they were naked after they sinned.
    • The nakedness meant that they had lost their glorified bodies, and could litterally see their shame.
  • It was not until the serpent entered into the garden and tempted them into sin that they ever knew what sin was
    • tempted them with the “choice” of choosing their will over gods.
    • choosing gives you the false notion that your knowledge and judgment is greater thatn that of god, and that you might have a better idea, of how to handle any situation.
    • Choice leads to tolerance, which leads to affirmation, which leads to acceptance, which leads to participation. — Matt Walsh
    • We must learn our faith, so that when we are presented with false choices, we can reject them and follow gods divine will.
• God gave us everything we would ever need to be perfectly happy, but that happiness was a free gift from God, not something they chose for themselves.
  • God gave us everything, life, food, shelter, companionship, and even Himself.
  • And he gave us the free will to accept and reject his gift.
  • Faith requires freedom, and freedom allows for doubt, and doubt can lead to rejection, but it can also lead to acceptance.
  • God gave us everything as a free gift of love, and gave it knowing that some would reject it. But he gave it as an invitation into his divine love.
  • but it is a gift that we have to freely recieve.
  • God Sees all, knows all, and has power over all, but the one thing he cannot (and will not) do is force, coerce, or trick us into loving Him back, it is not something we can be forced to take, or be tricked into accepting.
  • And true love can only come from that acceptance, and the free choice to return that love.
  • but when it is done that love is higher than anything else.
  • God wants us to know that kind of love, because that is the way that he loves us.

Purpose: God is love and His love must be shared - this covenant is an invitation into that union and full communion with the Lord

• The covenant - is mediated between god and Adam for all of humanity for all time. That is what the name “Adam” means “mankind” in Hebrew. He served the role husband to Eve, and the form that the covenant would take would be marriage. First, marraige between god and adam (man), and later between adam and eve (woman). But the covenant is the bond of all three, espoused in trinitarian love with God at the center. This is what makes marriage a sacrament.
  • The Sacrifice — Genesis 1:26–2:24 tells the story of gods covenant. The blood sacrifice here is actually god’s sacrifice. In making adam, he took part of his own divine nature and placed His own image, in his creation. The literal creation of Adam’s flesh and bone from clay by gods own hand, and the breathing of his Rhua into that clay was probably one of the greatest sacrifices ever made.
    • God the divine and infinite, took part of himself and made it human and finite. Think of how big of a sacrifice that is. And how much he had to love us, to do that for us.
  • the Oath — God Created them, gave them all the world, and everything in it
    • God promises that if you love, trust, and obey His commandments He will give you perfect happiness, and you will have everything you will ever need… He will be your god and you will be His people. You will “be fruitful and multiply” and “I will bless your heritage” this is the promise of the lord.
    • Adam was also bestowed with the roles of priest, profit and king.
      • Naming the animals made him king over the world. This is the divinely given kingship over the things that god gave us authority.
      • Being the lone voice of gods word in this world made him prophet (this includes teaching Eve, and his future children). This prophetic nature is the natural result of faith.
      • Tending to god’s garden made him a priest of his holy dwelling place. This is called the patriarchical priesthood. And it is the original source of the universal priesthood. Where every father is priest over his family, and every patriarch over his people.
    • Adam was also named the first partiarch. As he would serve as the father of all that would come after him,
      • while the father of each household would server as the partriarch of his family there was also a great patriarch that served as the head of his tribe, communitiy or nation.
      • This role was bestowed on Adam from God, and would be passed down from the great patriarch to the one that he gave his blessing. This was usually the eldest sone, but there were exceptions.
  • The Consummation — was to physically be in the presence of god in the garden, god not only sacrificed himself to make man, created the whole universe for him, and even offered himself to man in the garden and an intimate companion. He shared everything he is and has with them perfectly. Not only a meal but everything in perfect communion. This is gods wish and plan for us all.
• The Sign - The sign of the covenant was the sabbath, that every week the promises of gods covenant would be remembered.
• The Curses - The curse of death binds this covenant, if Adam and Eve are disobedient. if you eat of the tree of knowledge you shall surely die.
  • If They eat of the tree that they were forbidden from eating, they would bring forth the curse of death and suffering into the world and they would be expelled from the garden.
  • both spiritual and physical death.
• The Blessings - That the union of man woman and god would be fruitful and their offspring will fill the earth and rule over it.
  • the love that god is offering here is trinitarian love, and the consummation of trinitarian love is the covenant of marriage.
  • God is offering to bring us into that trinitarian love with Him, that is the first part of this covenenant. That is what is accomplished in God’s forming Adam out of clay, and breathing His divine Rhua into Adam to give him life.
  • The second part is the creation of Eve from Adam’s sacrifice, and completion of the trinitarian love by bringing God into trinitarian love with adam and eve through marriage.
  • God built her up from Adams sacrifice, he did not form her, he built her as a temple, a temple of which adam is the priest, prophet and king and eve is the sacred help-mate.
    • need to explain what a help mate means…, a partner, spouse, etc.
    • It is a beautiful divine circle. Man comes from God’s own hand. Woman comes from the side of man. And the generations of people to come after that will be from the communion of man and woman in the divine love of the trinity to create new life from the wombs of women.
  • Both the forming of adam, and the building of eve are sacred sacrificial acts, the first is that of god imparting part of his nature on man, and the other is a scrifice of man to make his beloved helpmate with the help of God.
  • Both require gods work and sacrifice, and our participation and mutual sacrifice. Both make us utterly dependant on god, while at the same time raise us up to the point of marriage with god, and that we can seek to find equality with god.
  • St. Athanasius said that “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God”, something that was not possible for the angles and other creatures of the universe.
  • This is the covenant that binds all of the following covenants, and it is the reason that god never gives up on us, it is the reason he keeps trying to save us. We were made by Him, for Him, and to be in perfect relationship with Him, in trinitarian love.
• discuss CCC 54-55, 288, 355-412
  • implied covenant development, by god making man in his image.

Message — Sin is our free choice - love & full communion with God is His will for us we must learn to choose Him over ourselves

• Virtue: Prudence is the cardinal virtue that teaches us the ability to discern what is right and wrong, and to choose the best course of action.
• Intimacy: Full communion, with God in Heaven
  • and we must bring Him into every aspect of our lives
• Salvation: God promises heaven to those that love Him
  • We must learn this lesson so that we can follow our conscience, and learn to trust him. Because trust is the foundation of reconciliation and restoration.
  • God allows us to struggle and suffer, so that we could come to understand what we had lost, and to yearn to regain it through faith in christ jesus.
  • that reconciliation is the key to that restoration.
  • but god is patient, and will wait and is always faithful to those that follow Him.

The Fall

“Whatever else is true of man, this one thing is certain: man is not what he was meant to be.” — G.K. Chesterton.

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” — Mark Twain

Chapter 7: Sadly, love can be rejected

A free choice can lead to the rejection of God’s love

• Many think that the adam and eve were the first to fall, but satan and his demons fell before man did.
  • The fall of satan is thought by many church fathers to have happened before the creation of man, but others say it is after the temptation of adam and eve.
    • Some say it happened as a result of the fall of man, but they are a much smaller group of opinion.
    • The great fathers Irenaeus, Aquinas, Agustine, all say it happened before, and I agree with them.
  • And this makes sense, satan falls, cast down to earth and into time, hates god, and hates man and wants to punish us, and hurt Him, by corrupting and destroying us.
• They fell for the same reason, free will!
  • Freely given love understands and accepts the reality that it is a gift that can be rejected.
  • If it couldn’t that would be slavery, and it would make god a tyrant.
• Simply saying that man fell to sin, and was expelled from the garden is not enough, because this same pride affects us all, human and angel alike, and so we must try to understand it more fully.
• When God gave us life and freedom, he knew that that freedom would lead to choice and choice would lead some to reject Him.

Choice leads to Lust, Greed, and Pride, one after another (aka. three fold concupiscense)

• fr. Longenecker explanation here - Power leads to desire, desire leads to pride. This is called three-fold concupicense
  • Greed or Power (Lust of the Eyes) - is to want and take things that are not rightfully yours.
  • Lust or Desire - (Lust of the flesh) - is to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh without moderation or honor.
  • Pride - (Pride of life) - is to think that you know better than God, or to think that you do not need God

And pride invariably leads to the fall

• It is the same sins that satan confronted when he was shown gods plan for man, it is the same that adam an eve would confront when the devil would tempt them, and it is the same that the devil would tempt Jesus with in the desert (but He would overcome), and it is the same that we will all confront as well, and many times in our lives.
• It is a cycle that we all get stuck in because of sin, and Jesus is the only way to overcome it.

Chapter 8: Pride caused Satan and a third of the angels to fall

God showed all the angels His plan for the salvation of man

• When Satan fell from Heaven. He did so with perfect knowledge and understanding (refer to previous section).
• God showed them that he created all of the angels, all of the universe, the plants and animals, all of it to help and serve His final and most beloved creation.. Mankind.
• Man had not been created at this time, they did not come about until the 6th day. It is believed that (outside of time) god showed his angels His plan, likely on or before the first day.
• He showed the angels that the humans would fall, they would reject god, and do all sorts of evil things.
• And He showed them His plan for their salvation. That He was going to humble Himself, and enter into creation in the incarnate Jesus, and that He was going to die for them, to save them from their sin.

Satan and one third of the angels said they would not serve, and that choice was permanent and final

• As the last thing God created, Satan saw man as the lowest members of gods creation because they were weak, stupid, and disobedient, and they were created last.
• But in god’s economy the first will be last and the last will be first. the greatest will be the servant of all, and the weakest will be raised up.
• But Why did Lucifer rebell when he learned that God would lessen himself for the sake of the lowest creatures in all of creation?
  • Lucifer was the greatest of all the angels, he was the first and most powerful being that God ever created. His name meant “light-bearer”, he was meant to carry god’s light into all of the universe.
  • Lucifer understood his place compared to God, and He knew that he was not more powerful than god, but he believed that his power should be adored by those beings below him in power, not offered up as a sacrifice for them.
  • He refused to accept the fact that his power was given to be a gift shared with the whole universe, not to lord it over it all creation.
  • As a consequence he made that false conclusion that God loved these lowly Humans more than him,
  • and because of pride and envy (of humans), he decided that He could no longer serve a God that would lower Himself to be no more than a bug stain on the bottom of his shoe. “the great and powerful” Lucifer could NOT love a god like that.
• Because of Pride Satan and one third of the angels fell and said they would not serve.
  • And when Satan fell from Heaven. He and his demons did so with perfect knowledge and understanding (refer to previous section).
  • They were not like human children that have to fail, and learn and make better choices the next time, the angels were born like old wise men (refer to previous section).
• As such when Satan and his demons made their choice for sin it was permanent and final.
  • because they are outside of time, and they have perfect intellects, their choice is irrevocable. See previous section.

Satan and his demons would forever be the antagonist of God and would forever try to destroy His beloved creation

• Satan told god that he could not serve a god that would lower himself to the level of the human.
• From that moment on Lucifer decided to reject god and everything he stood for, and to work against his plans at every turn.
• He also began to hate humans, more than he hated god, because they, in the ungrateful selfiish existence had attained something that he would never be able to grasp, the love of god.
• So Lucifer decided at that moment to make his life’s work to separate humans from an eternity of joy and happiness with God in heaven.

Chapter 9: Pride also caused mankind to fall

We chose ourselves, and that sin separated us from God and His protection

• george leo haydock says: There are four ways by which men are guilty of pride:
  1. By thinking they have any good from themselves;
  2. by thinking that though they have received it from above, it was given them as due to their own merits;
  3. by boasting of the good they do not possess;
  4. by desiring to be thought the only persons that possess the good qualities of which they thus pride themselves.
• Sin is the outward expression of our freedom to choose to reject God as opposed to accepting Him.
• Choosing, by it very nature is rejection of the other choice.
• Choice is attractive, because it allows you to have power over this one thing. it makes us think we are like gods and know better…
• That power is the lever that the evil one uses to change our choices into something evil. and lead us into sin.
• The choice that adam and eve faced was around the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.
• There is considerable debate as to whether or not there were two trees, or just one in the center of the garden. As a result we should explore both possibilities
  • One tree as proposed by some church fathers, and explained to me by Fr. Niemzack at a parish retreat. This theory asserts that the tree of knowledge and the tree of life was the same tree, and that that tree was gods word, Jesus Himself, the 2nd person of the most holy trinity, and that God’s law was not that they could not eat of it, but that God wanted to teach them and reveal to them over time the true meaning of the word and in His time they would come into communion with it.
    • God wanted us to rest in him, trust in him and allow his spirit to work in our hearts.
    • Man on the other had, wanted to take according to their own terms and their own timeline.
    • The choice was to take in our time or to wait in god’s time.
  • Two trees in the garden is proposed my many church fathers, They claim that there were two separate trees…, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge.
    • They were allowed to eat of the tree of life, it would allow them to live forever, but not the other, the tree of knowledge, because this would lead to choice, and choice leads to sin and separation from god.
    • The choice was between what god had allowed them and what they wanted for themselves.
  • In either case the sin, to take from God, the gifts of knowledge and life, which he already wants to give you, but to do it on your own pretexes, and when you are not ready to fully understand it, and not trust in God to reveal it to us in his way and in his time.
• And that is when temptation slithered in. But jewish teaching tells us that the “serpent” was actually a great dragon, fearsome and magnificent.
  • The serpent Tempted adam and eve with the three fold concupicense. Lust of Flesh, Greed of the eyes, and Pride of life (refer to previous section).
  • important to note that the temptation was not only greed, power and lust, but it was also fear of the great and powerful dragon.
• They fell becuase they did not know what they had, and chose the forbidden instead. they chose sin, becuase they did not want someone to decide for them.
  • Eve’s sin was usurpation, taking authority she did not rightfully possess.
    • she should have embraced her role as help-mate, and submitted to the authority of adam and his role in their marriage as priest prophet and king.
  • Adam was present in this moment too, and his sin was abdicating the authority and protection what he was supposed to provide to Eve.
    • Adam allowed the serpent and eve to get him to abandon his authority, and to give into temptation.
    • He should have knocked that fig out of Mary’s hand and slain that dragon, but alas he did not.

Adam and Eve were thus expelled from the garden and would now die

• They were thus expelled from the garden, forced to labor and work for everything that was previously given to them
  • Man would labor and toil to make his life from the earth. this is punishment for not protecting his wife, and gods garden from the evil one.
  • Woman would labor and feel pain in childbirth. This is punishment for not humbly accepting the role of helpmate, and trying to be leader herself.
  • And they would not live forever, but die.
    • never allowed back into the garden, because the tree of life would allow us to live forever in a state of sin, this was a mercy to be expelled from the garden.
    • Death was a mercy, because to live in a state of sin for all eternity would be a fate worse than hell — this is what vampires are.
• God did not create death, john bergsma wrote: “death is not a ‘thing,’ it is a privation, a lack, an absence of life. So, God did not ‘make’ it, because it does not have existence.”
• God is pro-life, it is we who chose death, and god did not approve of that choice.
• God allowed us to choose Death because of our free choice to sin, this is death of the body to allow us to go to purgatory, and finally acheive death to sin, and reconcile our sinful choices with god.

Chapter 10: Pride has Consequences

Satan chose himself and was cast out of the light of heaven, and seized dominion over the whole world

• Lucifer becomes Satan (aka the accuser), the angel of darkness.
• He battles with St. Micheal for the control of heaven, and obviously loses.
• He and a third of the angels fall from heaven
  • They are cast out of heaven because nothing unclean (sin, pride envy) can be in the presence of god.
  • being cast out of heaven they are not outside of time. They are still incorporeal, but they exist in the timeline of creation, waiting for their final judgment
  • I believe that they are cast down to earth to wallow in their hatred of humans, being forced to live with us (god’s beloved humans) until the end of time.
  • Satan and the third of the angels he convinced to follow him, decide to make it their life’s mission to corrupt and kill as many human souls as they can, to take them with him into hell with them at the end of time and at their final judgement.
• Satan takes dominion over the world, and all the souls in it. He is now the prince of darkness, and the lord of this fallen sinful world.

When we fall we remove ourselves from God’s protection, and by default, choose both spiritual and material death instead

• Many people think there is only one kind of death…, death of the body,
• But there is a far worse kind, death of the soul
• This is called spiritual death and this is what happens when you reject God.
  • This is mortal sin, and it separates you completely from god’s love and protection.
  • Explain the difference between mortal and venial

Most importantly, our choice whether we like it or not, puts us directly under the dominion of Satan

• Satan is the lord of this world. if you are not under the dominion of god, then you are under the dominion of satan
• When we listen to the voice of the tempter, and we fall from the grace that God gives us, we consequently place ourselves under the dominion of the devil.
• Not by punishment, from God but from our free choice to do so, when you reject god you are by default choosing the evil one.
• Because like I said before, in God’s Divine law, you cannot both reject God and also be in His eternal glory at the same time.
• So we either love God and rest under His protection, or we reject Him and fall under the dominion of the evil one.

Salvation

“God became man so that man might become God” — St. Athanasius

“God created us without us, but he did not will to save us without us.” — St. Augustine.

Chapter 11: Even though we rejected god, He did not abandon us

Man was fallen and stained by sin, but God still loved us, and wanted us with him in heaven

• fallen but not fogotten
• God did not create us just to let us die in our sins, he loves us, every hair on our head, and he wants us with him in heaven.
• But there is a problem we cant be in god’s presence while in a state of sin.
• gods is a burning fire of love. It does not burn flesh and bone but instead sin.
• So in order to be in his presence we have to be free of sin, so god created the story of salvation to help us to learn to let go of our sins and return to him, so that we can be with him fully in heaven.
• This is the first part of that story, that is later fulfilled in Jesus, and ultimately completed in heaven.

The story of salvation is God’s plan to restore us to communion with Him, and this gift too comes in the form of a covenant

• the covenants of god were simple,
  • If you accept his free gift, you will be blessed. If you love, trust, and obey Him, He will give you all that you need to ever be happy.
  • If you reject his gifts, or break the covenants you will be cursed, and cast out into the darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
• Those promises are sealed in a covenantal bond

The covenants were designed to move God’s people, slowly step-by-step, from broken and sinful people in this world to perfected and righteous ones in heaven

• He created a way to save us from sin while at the same time not break his law, or compell us to forgo our free will
• This plan would not break Natural law or compel us to forgo our free will.
• Just like choosing sin was our choice, turning back to him would be our free choice as well.
• But he could not take us from lost in sin to glorified in heaven all at once.
  • you cant teach calculus to kindergarteners. You must bring them along over time.
• So he devised a plan to convert our sinful souls over time and through growth and conversion.
• This is done by shepherding his people and bonding himself with covenants
• starting with adam, through all of the story of salvation, and finally with Jesus in His Passion, Death and Ressurection.
• he wants us all with him in heaven forever. Not a single soul was ever meant to be lost
• but the devil is strong and his lies are tempting
• god knows this and through his patient teachings and persistence he shows us the way back to him
• The covenants are all a little different, because of the characters and the times in which they are made, but the purpose of each covenant speaks to the deepest needs of the human heart.
• They are progressive, and speak to our conscience, and our need to learn how to know and love God, and ultimately reject our sin and the lures of the world.
  • If the goal is to get people to reject their sin, to love god and love their neighbor, it is going to take some time and training to get them to stop thinking of themselves, and put others first.
  • You cannot expect cave men to understand complex theology, just like you cannot expect people that are subject to kings, and authoritarians, to grasp the concept freedom and the wisdom of turning the other cheek.
  • Mike Schmidtz in his podcast spoke of the “plus one” theory of education.
    • this means that if you are a level 3 in knowledge of any subject that you can understand levels 1,2, and 3 but not 7.
    • So if someone asks you a level 7 question you will not be able to understand or answer it,
    • But if someone taught you level 4 you might be able to understand with training and practice.
    • That is the plus 1 theory
  • Development of the moral mind takes time, and is not simply the enlightenment of one mind, but the enlightenment of whole nations.
  • So we can learn how a moral mind is supposed to develop by understanding the story of salvation, and we can learn how to love god by understanding how he wants us to love each other.
  • Aquinas thought the Old Law was good but imperfect, intended to prepare Israel morally and ritually for Christ. The ceremonies were figures (types) of the New Covenant realities.
  • In the Summa (I–II, Q.98–106), Aquinas distinguishes between the Old Law (moral, ceremonial, judicial) and the New Law (primarily the grace of the Holy Spirit). He calls the New Law a “law of grace”, rooted in the interior transformation of the soul.

However, breaking a covenant has consequences

• We were made free, with the ability to accept or reject.
• rejecting is sin, also called concupicense.
• But we were also made with the ability to accept, also called charity or love,
• this freely given love is what makes us special to God
• Yet we break all of His covenants.
• But he never does, He is always faithful.
• And even after his covenants are broken, He still holds true to them forever, and for all of us for all time, regardless of what we do.
• To break a covenant is too tear the new creation apart. Ripping flesh
• A broken covenant is dead, the new creation is now ripped apart.
• A blood sacrifice must be made to atone. Lev 17:11
• Once broken, A covenant can only be renewed or restored, by a new sacrifice.
  • Only by the giving of blood, a new offering of your whole self, can a covenant be restored
  • To restore this covenant means to total denial of sin, denial of themselves, and recognition of our place in creation. God is god, and I am not.
  • This is something we can not do for ourselves, it requires the grace and mercy of god.

But God allows us to fall and be restored, and as such we learn about God’s merciful nature and His love for us

• But more than that it shows us that he has our best interest at heart, and that if we would just follow His instructions we would find our greatest happiness.
• Yet we repeatedly reject His offerings, but because of his great mercy, He facilitates the restoration of that relationship, and reignites the love that was lost.
• No matter how many times we sin and break these covenants, He never did.
• But like the plus one theory, the covenants progressed culture to the next phase of its growth.
• Even though they have been abolished centuries if not millenia ago, we are still called to observe them and the lesson that they teach us.
• And what they teach us is that He is always faithful, always loving, and always merciful.

He uses these moments as lessons to teach us a better way, and in so doing, He moves us closer and closer to Him

• The story of salvation is God’s plan for our redemption.
  • He shepherds his people through centuries of struggle and strife.
  • He gives them the law, and the explanation
  • He shows us signs of His fidelity, and love.
  • He sends us prophets to help us understand what is coming.
  • He sends us his own son Jesus.
• Always using the plus one theory to get us to the next stage of our development, but individually, and culturally
• This is what god did with us from the garden of eden all the way through the story of salvation, to ultimately with Jesus, and those mystics, and sages that came after Him.
• This is the point of the story of salvation, and so to better understand, let’s look at each of the covenants in more detail.

Chapter 12: The Second Covenant (Noahic) - The Covenant of Protection

Setting: The whole world has fallen into sin that cries out to God for justice - only the household of Noah remained faithful

• Noah was direct decendant of Adam, Luke 3:36-38 gives us the geneology… “…Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. 
  • We also understand that the patriarchical priesthood was passed onto Noah through this lineage. God > Adam > Seth > Enos > Cainan > Mahalaleel > Jared > Enoch > Methuselah > Lamech > Noah.
  • All of these fathers had the universal priesthood that God bestowed on all fathers, in their role as priest prophet and king, but the patraiarchical priesthood was only passed on from patriarch to patriarch
  • Noah is not only the only righteous man left on the earth, but he is the sole heir of the line of patriarchs from adam.
    • All of the other progeny of Adam had been lost to sin, only Noah and his kin remained.
• Kicked out of the garden man is now mortal, and can die.
• Sin has replaced the love of god, and used as a way of hiding from death.
• they would grow and fight, and kill and eventually their descendants would try to overthrow god with the tower of Babel
• If you cannot see the cost of sin, and you reject the love and life that god offers, then you are already dead.

Purpose: Death is the just consequence for our sin. But God protects those that remain faithful and obedient - this covenant is the sign of that protection

• God promised to remove the evil from their midst and to make Noah into a great people and He will never curse the ground again, and they will be fruitful and multiply
• The covenant- Is mediated between God and Noah for the benefit of all of humanity. Noah’s role was that of Father to the people of the world. And as a result of this God’s the people of this covenant would take on the form of a domestic household, an extended family.
  • Genesis 8:20 to 9:17 tells the the story of the covenant. It comes after the seas of the flood recede, God makes a new covenant with Noah.
  • The sacrifice — Noah offers a sacrifice of every kind of clean animal and bird, as a burnt offering.
    • “The animals that Abraham brings are “clean” animals, that is, animals suitable for sacrifice or other holy use, according to biblical law.” — Bergsma
  • The Oath — God promises to never to curse the ground of man, and flood the world again. The promise was made to all of the people that remained after the flood. God says that all human life is sacred, and cannot be shed, only god can do that. He promises Noah and his descendants, that they will always be fruitful and multiply.
  • The Consummation - was a burnt offering for the attonement of sin. This required the burning of all of the offering, in a oblation to the lord. In exchange God gives all the world to Noah and his children.
• The sign - is the rainbow. A symbol of God’s promise to never to curse the ground of man (or animals), by flooding the world again.
• The Curses - Destruction and Suffering await all those that drink the blood of animals, or to shed human blood.
  • the animals will now be afraid of man
  • but the animals are now all delivered into the power of man. But their blood must never be consumed.
  • The blood of an animal belongs only to god, and can only be used for sacrificial purposes.
  • The blood of man is sacred, and the punishment of death is on any man that takes the blood of another man.
• The Blessing is that Noah and his family are told to be fruitful and fill the earth with His children.
  • They are promised that despite their sins, they will be protected from total destruction by flood ever again, until the end of time.
  • and they will rest in God’s peace. That is what the name Noah means in Hebrew
• discuss CCC 56-58, 71
  • the covenant was between god and all mankind, for all time. Forever covenants versus limited ones.

Message: Death is what our sin deserves, but mercy is what God gives those that love Him - We must strive to be worthy of that grace

• Virtue: Justice is the cardinal virtue of giving each person what they deserve.
  • Justice is the rightful response to sin, death is what we deserve for our sins.
  • God is the antithesis of sin, We cannot be in sin and be in his presence.
• Intimacy: He is Above Us, guiding us as a voice from the heavens. But god is good and generous, and shows us that his mercy is greater than his justice, and promises never to flood the world again, and further promises that he will fill the world with his children, and will save them too.
  • God the good father wants lots of children and grand children,
  • He wants them to be happy and full of life.
  • Every soul is a beloved creation, and He wants us to participate in the great joy of new creation, and to overcome the death due to sin.
• Salvation: He protects the obedient from destruction
  • God recognizes the evil nature of sin, but promises to never punish that sin with natural death of a world wide flood anymore. He is beginning the process of converting our hearts away from getting what we deserve, and showing us that there is a better way, His way.

Chapter 13: The Third Covenant (Abrahamic) - The Covenant of Promise.

Setting: The world again is lost to sin, but a a small tribe led by Abram, remained faithful

• Noah’s sons would battle and war for ages, because of the issue about the drunkeness of Noah.
  • Noah fell drunk one night, and his son ham mocked him, but his other sons Shem and Japheth covered their father.
  • After that incident, ham was cast out, and would forever be at odds with the other brothers and their families.
  • This division continued until the point of Abram.
• The world is so lost to sin, and full of debauchery, that God destroyed Sodom and Ghomorah, because there were not even 10 righteous people there, only 6 remained…, Lot, his wife, and two daughters and their husbands. But only 5 survived because Lot’s wife turned back and became a pillar of salt.
• After the flood, the reconstruction of the people of god, was reliant on the family and community.
• A man could not survive all by his own. They needed each other for protection, for farming, and for life in the next generation.
• Abraham in his young life was told to move into a new land, and take possession of it.
  • as a result he battled with many pagan kings, and god brought him to victory.
  • After his great victory over the 4 great kings he is met by the king of Salem, the mysterious Melchizedek (whom jewish tradition tells us is Shem, son of Noah),
  • Melchizadek bestowed the patriarchal priesthood onto Abraham, the priesthood that goes all the way back to adam, through noah, and his son shem.
    • The geneology of Luke 3:34–36 tells us… “Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah.”
    • We understand that Abram was in the line of the great patriarchs, and is a direct decendant of Adam
    • But we also believe based on jewish tradition, that melchizadeck was in fact the great patriarch, and this meeting is Shem passing on the patriarchical priesthood on to Abraham before he dies.
• Abraham settled into the land, and was very wealthy, but he was childless, and feared for his future and the future of his wife.
• God promised that abraham would be father of nations, and his decendants would be as numerous as the stars.
  • three men visit abram and sarai. This is the trinity in disguise
  • They inform abram that sarai would be pregnant in a year.
• Gods covenant with Abraham, was not about making a great family for himself, but for the posterity of the people of God.

Purpose: God loves those that love Him, and honors the faithful, with greatness - this covenant consecrates that promise forever

• The covenant - is an everlasting covenant, mediated between god and Abraham and all of his descendants. His role was that of chieftain, and the people of this covenant would take the form of a tribe
  • The Sacrifice: (Genesis 12:1–3; 15; 17:1–14; 22:16–18). Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. They are split in half, the blood is shared between them.
  • The oath: God said I will make you father of “a great nation”, I will give you “a great name,” and you will be “a blessing to everyone.” That is what the name Abraham means. “Father of a multitude”
  • The Consummation: there appeared a torch and a flaming pot that passed between the pieces and they were consumed. This was a burnt offering, a sweet oblation to the lord.
• The Sign - Is the mark of circumcision. an outward physical sign of the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people. For the Israelites. circumcision was a religious rite representing God’s blessings and Israel’s obedience to God.
• The Curses - Any man that is not circumcised will be cut off from the people of Israel, and to be cut off is to be dead…, torn in two. But God also places the same curse of death on himself.
  • “The smoking fire pot and torch that appear are representations of God’s presence, a theophany. The passing between the pieces of the animals had an established meaning in the ancient Near East: whoever passed through the pieces was saying, by means of this ritual, “May I be slain like these animals if I do not keep the commitments of the covenant I am now making.” By causing his presence (represented by the fire pot and torch) to move between the animals, God was saying to Abraham: “I invoke upon myself a curse of death if I do not fulfill the promises I am making to you right now… How God could possibly invoke a curse of death on himself is a great mystery, but it recalls to mind certain themes from the New Testament, such as St. Paul’s statement that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree’” — Excerpts From John Bergsma
• The Blessings - God promises the blessings of land and a great nationhood for his descendants, and through them to bless all the nations of the earth.
• discuss CCC 59–61, 72, 145–147, 706
  • god formed his people from the seed of abraham.
  • Abraham is known for his faith.

Message: God wants to give us every good thing, but only in his time, and in His way. We must trust in His plan & persevere to the end

• Virtue: Fortitude is the cardinal virtue that give us the courage to persevere in difficult times and to do what is right, even when it is hard.
  • But he knows that we are fallen, and he knows that we dont deserve his love and patience, but instead he give us chance after chance, all that he has asks in return is trust that he keeps his promises.
• Intimacy: Above Us, speaking to us through angels and visiting strangers. God want us to trust in Him, and His promises, to understand that we dont have to do it all on our own, that we can rely on Him and He will take care of us.
• Salvation: God rewards great faith
  • gods promises don’t always look like we would expect them to, but God’s promises are always are kept.
  • Even though we fall, as abraham himself fell multiple times before the covenant was ultimately completed, we must have faith and trust in the lord that He will make good out of our failings.
  • he had Ishmael with a slave, and did not trust god.
  • He laughed when god said sarah would bare him issac
  • But in the end his faith was rewarded with the saving of isaac from sacrifice.
    • He was asked to offer blood sacrifice of Isaac, the son of the promise. Abraham is told that he must cut himself (metaphorically) in half to restore the covenant.
  • The covenant was finally and fully ratified in his obedience, and that his faith and obedience lead to the posterity of the whole world that we have today

Chapter 14: The Fourth Covenant (Mosaic) - The Covenant of Freedom

Setting: The nation of Israel has fallen into sin and idolorty, and that infidelity has led them into slavery in Egypt

• The posterity of Abraham (Isaac, then Jacob) is now transformed into a great people.
  • In Luke 3:33-34 the blessing or patriarchical priesthood and blessing was passed down from one great patriarch to the next. From Shem > Abraham > Isaac > Jacob > Judah.
• Notice that Isaac and Jacob are not the first born sons, and in Jacobs case he tricked both his brother and his father into giving it to him.
  • But just because humans break the plans, god makes the best of it, and our posterity is known to come from and pass through these broken and fallen men. That is why the OT constantly reminds us that the God of the OT is the god of abraham, isaac and jacob.
• Notice also that something else is happening here
  • the patriarical priesthood and blessing is passed from jacob to judah, but the rest of the 11 tribes only have the universal priesthood spread from father to son.
  • these tribes grow and multiply and fill the land
  • But many were not keeping the faith, fulfilling their duties of their universal priesthood, and thus their disobedience lost them gods protection. And their nation has fallen into famine.
• Exiled from their homeland because of starvation now find themselves persecuted and in slavery in Egypt.
• In god’s providence though, he uses Jacob’s son joseph to save all of isreal from starvation.
• This covenant is about having faith and trusting that the lord will save them from their slavery, and restore them to the promised land.
• moses was ultimately born to a levite priest and a levite woman, not of the tribe of judah. The midwives were supposed to kill him, but the mother placed him a basket and the pharoahs daughter found him
  • He was “pulled/drawn out” of the water, that is where he got his name moses.
  • She paid moses real mother to raise him and feed him, and then when old enough he went to live in the palace.
  • moses was unique in egypt because he had the privledge and power of being the pharoahs nephew, but also the connection with the jews as a priests son.
  • it made him uniquely positioned to speak authoritatively in both worlds.
  • while not a decendant of the tribe of judah, he was a levite, he was a member of what would later become the ministerial (sasserdotal) priesthood, and the line of priest would ultimately pass through him (this will make more sense later).
• Moses brings his people out of slavery in egypt, with the love and protection of the lord. God, in doing this is fulfilling the covenant made to Abraham.

Purpose: God will not force you to love Him, rejecting Him leads to slavery - this covenant shows us God's desire to free us from slavery to sin

• The covenant is mediated between god and Moses for all of the people of Israel. His role was that of judge and liberator of the tribe of Israel. And the people of this covenant took the form of a great nation, Israel
  • The sacrifice: (Exodus 3:4–10; 6:7; 19:5–6; 24:3–8) tells the story of the covenant. Young bulls were sacrificed. Half the blood was poured on the altar, representing god, the other half was poured on the people, bonding them in the sacrifice, one in blood
  • The oath: God said if you follow my law, I will be your god, and you will be my people. The people said that they will follow everything you tell us. His promise is that if you love, trust, and obey my commandments, I will save you from slavery.
  • The Consummation: half of the sacrifice was burned in holocaust, and the other half was consumed by the people. They are now family. This is a todah offering, it is for thanksgiving, atonement was never made in a todah. It required bread, and flesh sacrifice, and it all had to be consumed by the morning, this was usually done as a family because the animal offering was usually large, and could not be eaten by a couple people alone.
• The Sign - The sign of the covenant was passover, an annual celebration that commemorates the forming of the nation of Israel.
• The Curses - If the people of Israel are not faithful to God, by following the 10 commandments they will fall out of gods protection, and will not be his beloved people, and fall back into slavery.
• The Blessings - They are promised freedom and that they will be God’s precious chosen people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.
• discuss CCC 62–64, 1961–1964, 2056–2063
  • god chose his people saved them and gave them his law.
  • and the law is a preparation for the gospel.

Message: God wants to draw us out of slavery to sin. It is only by faith that we can hear his voice and be led to the promised land

• Virtue: Faith is the theological virtue that gives us the ability to believe in God and what He has revealed. And to trust in his promises
  • Nations that do not follow gods law fall into sin, and sin leads to slavery, God wants to save his people from slavery to sin. And the answer to this is faith.
• Intimacy: Sin is our free choice - love & full communion with God is His will for us we must learn to choose Him over ourselves.
  • God in the events of the delivery from egypt, and the wandering in the desert, brought the presence of god directly into the daily lives of the Jews,
  • be it the ark of the covenant, or
  • the Shekina cloud, or
  • the pillar of fire,
  • God was with them in physical form.
• Salvation: He save us from slavery
  • He was frightening, but he saved them from slavery, and watched over them protecting them from their enemies. God is getting closer and as a result, the jews became closer as well. Afraid but closer.
  • their faith is what saved them in the passover, and it was their faith that would sustain them in the desert.

Chapter 15: The Fifth Covenant (Davidic) - The Covenant of Providence.

Setting: Israel is now strong, living in the promised land, their enemies are defeated, and it has grown into a great kingdom

• The people are falling into sin and then repenting over and over. Starting with Moses in the desert, they fall into sin, and are punished, and Moses intercedes for them and restores their communion with god.
  • possibly tell the story of the 10 commandments here and how they were too afraid to have god as king and preferred to follow Moses instead.
    • God wanted to be their king, and for them to follow him,
    • they were afraid and wanted a mediator so they chose Moses.
    • but they lost faith, and we have the golden calf incident, and were punished.
    • This is how they lost their patriarchical priesthood (of adam) and were made to follow the ministerial priesthood of the levites, and the one leader Moses as their head, then later judges and kings.
• Moses finally dies, and they move into the promised land.
• The people are lost without a leader and so God sends judges to bring his people back but they fall back into sin as soon as the judge dies.
• They eventually get tired of the judges and ask for a king. They ultimately dont want a king, and god reminds them of this but they insist.
  • God wanted them to think of Him as a king, not to want a fallen earthly man.
  • But they persisted and the first king was saul, but he was quickly corrupted by power.
• Then David was chosen. He was a man after gods heart, and he was the greatest of all jewish kings.
  • That is what the name David means in hebrew “beloved”
  • Through him and his son Solomon, Their kingdom was the greatest in the jewish history.
  • David was of the line of great patriarchs. Luke 3:31–33 shows us that he came from the line of abraham, through Judah > Perez > Hezron > Arni > Admin > Amminadab > Nahshon > Sala > Boaz > Obed > Jesse > David.
  • David was not only of the great line, but he was God’s anointed, and even though the line of the patriarchical priesthood was broken through the dissobedience of the tribes of isreal (except Levi and Judah), and replaced by the ministerial priesthood in the levites, the great kingdom of heaven and the kingship given to Adam and passed down is maintained and restored in David and the line of men that would come after him. Further to make this ordination concrete David is annoited to this kingship by God Himself.
    • david was annointed king by god, and that made him a king of the most high, and that jewish king was to reflect on the word of god night and day…, he would arbitrate issues in his kingdom as king, and he would prophesy to his people bringing them the word of the lord. Just like Adam and all of the great patriarchs
    • even though the lineage was broken in the desert, it is reestablished in David and the kings that would follow him.
• David lead his people with honor, and righteousness.
  • but his personal life was a total trainwreck and he did evil things to get bathsheba his wife
  • And he paid a horrible price for his licentiousness, he lost his firstborn son.
• But there is a war with the philistines and the ark is taken and jerusalem is plundered.
• David with God’s help routs the philistines and recovers the ark takes jerusalem back and then brings the ark back into the holy city.
• There are some really interesting things that happen on this return.
  • We have the event of uzzah
  • the ark going to the hill country to obed edom
  • then finally David brings the ark into jerusalem dancing before it. And making sacrifice.
• This covenant was about restoration of the people and the crowning of the great king who would be the father of the line of david which would eventually give us Jesus.

Purpose: God delights in our joy, and in joy, this covenant establishes God's kingdom (of temple and throne) forever

• The covenant is an everlasting covenant mediated between God and David for the whole kingdom of Isreal. David served in his role as that of king, and the people of this covenant took the form of a Royal Empire, a National Kingdom.
  • The sacrifice - (2 Samuel 6; 7:8–19) - upon entering the city David offered sacrifice and holocaust every step of the way, and then distributed it all among the people, the entire multitude of Israel, to every man and every woman, one loaf of bread, one piece of meat, and one raisin cake. By this massive sacrifice, He brought the entire people of isreal into the same covenenant between them and god, establishing his kingdom.
  • The Oath - God promised that David's sons would build his temple, and from your descendants the king of kings will come. God promised to David that his son(s) would build his temple, and be the greatest of all kings, He was talking about Solomon his biological son, and jesus, his distant progeny.
  • The Consummation - The Sacrifice was consumed in holocaust by the lord, and by every member of the Jewish people, offering bread, meat and cake. These were burnt and communion offerings. Animals were consumed in attonment for their sins, and Bread was offered for communion with the lord.
• The Sign - The sign of the covenant was Throne and temple. The figure of king David is the sign of throne, reuniting the ark of the covenant, the seat of god, into the temple. David restores the kingdom to be both the throne and the temple as the sign of God’s divine kingdom in heaven.
• The Curses - Punish him if he does wrong but never take his throne away from him — “If he does wrong, I will reprove him with a human rod and with human punishments; but I will not withdraw my favor from him as I withdrew it from Saul who was before you” (2 Samuel 7:14–15)
• The Blessings - You will have prosperity - God promises to make the son of David, Solomon to build his Temple, and the son of David, Jesus to sit on the throne of David forever, and give wisdom to all nations — I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you: “when your days have been completed and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, sprung from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom. He it is who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. (2 Samuel 7:11–14).
• discuss CCC 2578-2580, 709–710
  • David is a king after god own heart. A shepherd that pray for his people in there name.

Message: God's providence leads to prosperity, but prosperity can lead to temptation - only by humilty that we can resist

• Virtue:Temperance is the cardinal virtue that gives us self-control and moderation in all things, including physical pleasures and desires, but also in the wisdom to rule over the people.
  • The king of isreal was also supposed to reflect on the word of God night and day, and his throne would be the seat of judgment where people would come to have their disputes settled. The king was supposed to be wise and faithful and to use that wisdom and faith to guide the people.
• Intimacy: Beside Us, in the ark of the covenant, and the temple and throne.
  • he gave us the ark of the covenant, in the tabernacle and temple as a place to worship and find reconciliation despite our sins.
  • The people are even closer now, but god is veiled, and as such the people are less afraid, and the lack of fear caused deeper faith.
• Salvation: God provides prosperity
  • When you fall, rise again, restore the broken relationship and god will make good out of the sin that he allows, infact greatness, will be the result.
  • once saved from sin, god wants to transform our nation into greatness
  • And from that greatness, the son of God will arise.
  • But god knows that we are sinners, and wants to save us from that in, and in order to be saved we have to be forgiven, and to be forgiven, we must worship and make sacrifice.

Chapter 16: The Sixth Covenant (Prophetic) - The Covenant of Warning

Setting: Israel is again lost, it's kings are corrupt, the people have been scattered, and their faith has been mixed with pagans cultures

• while technically not a covenant in the teachings of the church fathers,
  • it is implied in many places of the ccc, and
  • many teachers refer to it as both a renewal of the past covenants that were broken and lost, and
  • a return to god and right worship in a restoration of the old covenants.
  • But more than anything it is a fulfillment of all of the old covenants, in that it prepares us for the coming of christ and the establishment of the final covenant.
• David fell to the temptations of wealth and power chose adultery and murder. He would redeem himself but only by great sacrifice.
  • But david was weak and sinned with Bathsheba.
  • He fell for the three fold concupicense and risked everything, because of temptation.
  • David would lose his first son, the promise would have to be fulfilled by his illegitimate son of his shame… Solomon.
  • The kingdom would then be divided as a result of Solomon’s sons.
  • the kingdom would then suffer a long string of kings, some good, mostly bad, and all corrupted by sin and paganism.
• The people are ultimately lost to synchrotism, and pagan worship infecting their faith. Great voices rise up, but the powerfull silence them.
• People are waiting for messiah, as promised by the prophets. The messiah would unite the tribes, restore the temple, and defeat all of their enemies.
  • Isaiah 11:1 — “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse” - this will be the promised son of David, Jesus.
  • Jeremiah 31:31-34 — prophesies a new covenant that… “I will write upon their hearts.” This will be a restoration of the davidic covenant. That was lost by the jewish kings and people by their sin.
  • Ezekiel 34:25-26 — lists even more davidic promises.
  • Daniel 9:24-27 — prophesies the exact amount of days that will pass before the coming of the messiah
• Prophets arise to warn, and speak truth to power, but many leaders dont want to lose their power and so they ignore the warnings, and kill the messengers.
  • that is what the word prophet (navi) means in hebrew:“to proclaim, mention, call, summon.”
  • These covenants were broken, multiple times, some were heard like Jonah to the ninevites, but most resulted in the complete and total rejection of these prophets, and their words, and with the horrible martyrdom of the prophets at the hand of the Jews.
  • the prophecies are understood in four ways
    • from aleteia — The medievals had a little Latin rhyme which says “Litera gesta docet, Quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, Quo tendas anagogia.” Translated poetically, it means:
      • “The literal teaches what God and our ancestors did, /
      • The allegory is where our faith and belief is hid, /
      • The moral meaning gives us the rule of daily life, /
      • The anagogy shows us where we end our strife.”
    • these are direct quotes from alateia. and either need to be rewritten or attributed properly.
      • The literal meaning of a verse asks: what is the meaning of past events as reported in the sacred text. Here we can think of something like the historical meaning. The literal meaning of a verse is more or less what happened.
      • The allegorical meaning is sometimes called the Christological or typological meaning. The idea here is that events and symbols can refer to Christ. References to Jesus can even be found in the Old Testament.
      • The moral meaning They instruct us on how to live. We can think too of the many words of wisdom of the prophets or of the advice given in books like Proverbs and Sirach. The Bible offers a guide to life, offering us real courses of action to carry out in our own day.
      • The anagogical meaning These future things (eschatological things to use the technical theological term) are as real in the story of Christian salvation as past events: death, judgment, purgatory, heaven, or hell. Jesus reveals to us that the Kingdom of heaven will be like a wedding feast (among other images) and that he is the key to arriving there.
    • these modes of analysis allow use to see that there was a proximate and distant meaning to all prophecy, meaning right now and in the future
      • Important to discuss that the warnings are all proximate, and distant in 3 ways, with the historical problem at the time of the prophesy, in the future with coming of the messiah, and in the end in the kingdom of heaven.
    • In the future could also mean when jesus comes or at the end of time. Or both.
  • As a result the jews lost God’s protection.
  • some suffered loss and death as a result of their fall, and others did not.
  • Jonah died and was ressurected, but most of these prophets suffered martyrdom, and died horrible deaths.
  • but the jews all eventually recognized their holiness, and prophetic purposes.
    • “a prophet is accepted, except in his own home town?
  • The shekina cloud left the temple before it was destroyed never to return, the pressence of the god was gone.
  • isaiah foretold that the temple would be destroyed and it was not supposed to be rebuilt, until jesus returned an built in of his own body.
  • Daniel fortold down to the year the arrival of the messiah. And the were to be without the pressence of the lord until then.
• It was the lack of faith, being unfaithful, and pride that lead to the dropping the jubilee, and other bad things done that put them in trouble, hope is the antidote to lost faith.
  • Also discuss the jubilee, and its meaning here, and how this suffering is the result of the jews not following the jubilee laws.
  • and how the disobedience would lead to the fall of the temple, and the corruption of the jewish kings.
• it would be the hope in god that He would fulfill all of the promises, ultimately leading to the perfect fulfillment of Jesus.
• In Luke 3:23–31 we get the lineage from David to Jesus.
  • Jesus was the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David 
  • This matters because we see a split in the line of kings, and the line of great patriarchs, as the line tha jesus comes from is from Nathan not Solomon.
    • the line of patriarchs is maintained even after the patriarchical priesthood is broken, and the eternal kingship is lost, and the prophets are all killed.
    • the line is full of bad people, sinners, and even pagans and non Jews. Jesus overcomes, and fullfills all of that.
    • The line that would bring us Jesus, is an everlasting line that goes all the way back to Adam.

Purpose: God does not desire to see his sheep scattered, and the wolves chasing them, this covenant is a warning, to return to the faith

• The covenant is mediated between god and long series of men that will later be called the prophets. These men would serve in the role of Prophet, foretelling the future and the consequences that would befall Israel if they did not heed these proscriptions. The form of the covenant to the people was “Warning,” proscribing the jews and their kings to return to the lord.
  • The sacrifice — each prophet has their own experience with the lord where they come to terms with the lords wishes, and each is ratified in their own way. All of these prophets were martyred horribly for their words. and their deaths were the sacrafice offered for this covenant.
    • give examples of deaths like stoning, sawing in half, crucified, etc.
  • The oath — the oath in each case is the promise that the faith as they know it will be destroyed if they do not repent, and that the messiah is coming and he will fulfill all of what the prophets foretold.
    • if you love, trust, and obey my commandments, and if you listen to my messengers (prophets) you will find refuge from the evil that besets you on all sides.
  • The Consummation — The jewish people did not participate in these covenants, at the time, it was not until after the prophecies were all fulfilled that they looked back on their words and recognized gods hand it it all.
    • These would all be burnt offerings to attone for the sin of killing these messengers of God.
• The Sign - The sign of the covenant was martyrdom
• The Curses - Fall away from the faith and right worship, and you will lose god’s protection, and will suffer persecution from your enemies.
• The Blessings - Return to the covenants and be faithful, and you will be protected.
• discuss CCC 64, 522, 1964, 2581–2584
  • the message of the prophets was hope.
  • the mission of the prophets was conversion of the heart and return to the covenants.

Message: God is always offering forgiveness and reconciliation, we only need ask for it, and return to Him

• Virtue: Hope is the theological virtue that enables us to trust in God's promises and persevere in difficult times.
• Intimacy: - Beside Us, as guides that show us the way, and warning us to return & reconcile.
  • That closeness is that of heeding gods, warnings, and getting others to do the same.
• Salvation: He offers forgiveness and reconcilliation
  • The great nation that god has built up, is surrounded by wolves, and they look to corrupt, and ensnare you in their lies and deciet.
  • They want to bring the great nation down into the mire of selfishness, and sin. Heed the warnings, as your demise is near.
  • Follow the instructions of God hope in His providence and He will protect you, ignore his voices and you will find that the wolves will overtake you.
  • If the prophets as a whole did one thing it was so show gods constant fidelity, his gentle and consistent nudging of the jews back into faith and right worship, and the backing up of those nudges with the blessings and curses that accompanied them. Those that followed the law were blessed and those that didn’t were cursed, this fact alone brought many people back to the lord, even if it was after the fact, and after the prophets were all tortured and killed.

Chapter 17: All of the elements of the covenants teach something different about God’s divine nature

The state of the people and the purpose for each covenant reveals God’s infinite mercy and His constant fidelity

• Setting: The people are always lost to sin, but the faithful, show us the way to salvation, and by God's infinite mercy, he offers us chance after chance to return to Him
• Purpose: is always to draw us back into communtion with him. We fall away, and he calls us back over and over, no matter how far we walk away from God it is only one step back to him

The unique elements of each covenant show us His tender care and His eternal concern for our well-being

• Mediator: God is calling us by name. Every name has a meainging in God’s eyes, they are His hope and will for us. We must learn the name that God has given us, and try to live up to that name
• Role: God is showing us how responsibility and love are connected - that the more that our influence grows the more our responsibility does as well
• Form: God is teaching us about subsidiaridy - that love goes outward in concentric circles starting with god, and little by little out into the whole world.
• Sacrifice: God is teaching us first to sacrifice those things that are valuable to us (animals and food), and then as we grow closer to him to sacrifice our vary lives. There is is no greater gift than this than to lay down ones life for another
• Oath: God is teaching us in each oath the promises of Heaven. That if you love trust and obey his commanments that you will have eternal life with Him in Heaven
• Consummation: God is teaching us how to bind ourselves to Him. He consumes his part of the offering in fire, and we do so in the form of a meal. In the begining it is a meal of the flesh of an animal, in the end it is the body and blood of christ in the form of the eucharist. In heaven it is complete and full communion with God in Heaven

The consequent results of each covenant serve as a call to bring us into personal relationship with Him, and ultimately full communion

• Sign: God is teaching us that everything we do in this world is a sign, whether it shows your faith in god or the evil one is your choice
• Curses (conditions): God is teaching us that everything bad thing in our lives is a result of sin and turning away from him and His loving kindness. The curses are not because god wants to get back at us but because he wants us to get us back to him.
• Blessing: God is teaching us that he wants many children, and wants to not only love us, but for us to love each other and be happy

Finally the message of each covenant calls into greater intimacy with him, they help us achieve greater holiness, and lead us to salvation

• Virtue: God is teaching us that virtue is a choice and a result of living a life centered around him, and connecting our will to His
  • First, The cardinal virtues — They are essential for a virtuous life and are the foundation to other virtues and the development of a moral conscience.
    • Prudence: The ability to discern what is right and wrong, and to choose the best course of action.
    • Justice: The virtue of giving each person what is due to them.
    • Fortitude (or courage): The courage to persevere in difficult times and to do what is right, even when it is hard.
    • Temperance: The virtue of self-control and moderation in all things, including physical pleasures and desires
  • Then the theological virtues — These virtues are gifts from God that enable us to live in a relationship with the divine will and to grow in holiness.
    • Faith: The ability to believe in God and what He has revealed.
    • Hope: The virtue that enables us to trust in God's promises and persevere in difficult times.
    • Charity (Love): The virtue by which we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves, for God's love.
• Intimacy: God is showing us his infinite mercy. That even though we do not deserve it, He drawing us to him to commune with us for eternity
  • God then begins the process of bringing us back into communion with him.
    • He is outside us, above us, scary and ominous
      • It begins with a warning from god, an ark, and a flood that obliterates all sin from the world.
      • next is a voice from the heavens that promises His fidelity, if we are faithful
    • Then he is beside us, helping us, teaching us and protecting us
      • next a burning bush, a cloud of smoke, and a pillar of fire,
      • next the ark of the covenant, and a tabernacle, and then the temple,
    • Then he is with us and inside us, communing with us on an intimate level.
      • next in bodily form Jesus,
      • next disguised as bread and wine in the holy eucharist.
    • finally in heaven the promise is that we will be perfectly married to Him in perfect communion, for all eternity.
  • slowly as we get closer to aligning our will with His, he comes closer to us, until a last he is inside us,
  • The point ultimately (like I said before) was intimacy! From being lost sinful, and hateful beings toward each other and god, to be being intimate with all of creation and especially god.
• Salvation: God is saving, pulling us out of slavery to sin, and into love in etenity in heaven forever
• The lesson: is always the same, god wants us to be with him, and it is by these lessons that we learn to let go of our will, and slowly begin to choose His will instead

Redemption

“Jesus paid a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay.” — Fulton Sheen

Chapter 18: Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all of the covenants

The coming of the lord Jesus, is prefigured in the the old Testament.

• St Augustine said that the NT is concealed in the OT, and that the OT is revealed in the NT.
• But it is not just jesus but all of the trinity and the kingdom of heaven.
  • in the OT, God the father is prefigured in, one of the 3 men that visit Abraham. The ark of the covenant, and altar of the temple, etc.
  • Jesus is prefigured in Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the Prophets
  • The Holy Spirit is prefigured in the shekina cloud, the pillar of fire, the ruah in genesis, and dove that foretold the end of the flood, and many more.
  • The temple in the kingdom of heaven is prefigured in Noah’s ark, Moses tent, and tabernacle. In David’s house of cedar that Solomon would build, and the real temples that were build in the time of the prophets.
• the story of the landowner his vineyard, winepress and his son describes all of this in an Extremely good way as an analogy for describing the state of the people and the covenants at the time of jesus’ arrival.
• His entire life on earth was remarkable, he fulfilled every prophecy, 300+ no small feat. And he completed all of the work that was promised in his life death and resurrection.
• Lets now look at his miraculous birth and his incredible life.

God sent His son, the second person of the holy trinity to us and was incarnated as a man

• the incarnation in the womb of Mary, is the most miraculous thing that has ever happened in this world
  • heaven touched earth
  • god became man
  • that is why we bow when ever it is mentioned, in mass or during the angelus, or at any other time.
• not only that but the annunciation and visitation are some of the most amazing prefigurements of the OT
  • Mary going to the hillcountry to visit Elisabeth is the reinactment of the new david bringing the new ark into the world.
  • john the baptist is the new david, mary the new ark, and elizabeth the new uriah the hitite.
  • this whole seen fullfills the prophecies of the coming of the lord and the return of the pressence.
• Jesus was not incarnated as man before the fall when they were without sin, and could not die, but live forever with god in heaven, He was incarnated as fallen man, suscepitble to sin, and could die.
  • The garden was perfection, there was no death, and lived in perfect happiness
  • The fall brought all of that into the world. And that is the world and humanity that Jesus was born into.

Born miraculously to the immaculate virgin, Mary

• Jesus is born in bethlehm (house of bread), in a feading trough, in a cave was the fullfillment all of the prophesies
  • Born to a virgin not because it had to be that way but because it was fitting.
  • the presence of the lord had returned to the world.
• The presentation was the fullfillment of the davidic covenant, the messiah was here, he is the new king and the new temple, and he is the full presence of the lord returning to the earthly temple once again.
  • Need to include the stories of the old man and the widow in the temple that recieved the baby jesus in the temple after his birth, and my reflection on it.

He grew in wisdom and knowledge, and lived a completely human life

• Jesus was always a holy boy. and knew where his Father was, and where he must be, But He was also obedient to Mary and Joseph.
  • Discuss the various theories about how much Jesus knew and when.
  • I suggest that he was the best infant, child, boy, and man that a human could ever be. and his knowledge of god and the universe was perfect to the extent that his growing human body would allow him to be.
• He knew that he was god, but when is hard to say.
• He also knew, as a man when his ministry was to begin, but he was obedient to his mothers requests to start in cana. This is a remarkable deference to his human mother, and an example of how god works with our free will, to do his divine will.

Jesus was 100% man and 100% Divine

• Explain what it means to be completely God and completely man at the same time, with the description of the Hypostatic Union Argument:
  • Recalling the explanation of Form, matter, and Aquinas’ explanation of substance and accidents, we then move to the following argument.
  • If you were to use a heart transplant as an example. The heart as it is taken from the donor, would not exist on its own. In fact it would deteriorate to the point of rotting within a very short time. But if a surgeon can put that heart into the new patient body, connect all of the arteries and nerves, and shock it back into life, it will almost immediately become part of that new patients essence. The soul of the new patient absorbes the new member, and through the human will to survive uses that member to power it’s physical life-force. It is a member that is not its own, alien to its physical body, but becomes part of the body due to the will of the new patient. This is an analogy to the incarnation. God joined his divine nature to the nature of man through mary, and became a human life that was held in existence by the devine will of the son. The body was completely human in every way, but the soul was the divine second person of the holy trinity.
• god did not shoehorn his divine soul into human body, but he instead subsumed a human body into his divine soul.
• Include herein (somewhere) this passage by Pope St. Leo the Great, called “The mystery of man’s reconciliation with God”
  • “One and the same person — this must be said over and over again — is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
• possibly include the analogy from the avatar movie, about being two persons one soul. Not sure if this is appropriate for this book I need to ponder it more.

And while His divinity was somewhat limited in His human form, He always responded in perfect human obedience to the Father

• he was nonetheless limited in his human form. Humans are finite and limited in all things, god is infinite and unlimited, so in human form he was definitely not the same as god in heaven.
• The human mind cannot conceive of the mysteries of god and the trinity
• But the human form can be totally connected with God and that is what he accomplished.
• His humanity in no way changed his divinity, but His divinity completed and perfected his humanity.

But He felt the full weight of temptation to sin and He experienced every human emotion and feeling and doubt - but He never sinned

• as a result Jesus felt everything that we humans feel, every joy and pleasure, and every pain and suffering of human life.
  • he lived a completely human life,
  • felt every passion,
  • experienced every joy and sadness, and
  • loved totally and completely
• but he responded perfectly to every one. And never sinned
• Bishop Baron explains in his “Word on Fire” podcast…
  • Jesus was fully human and fully god, so he was susceptible to the all of the same temptations that we are, but because he was fully god they had no affect on him.
  • Sin separates you from god, and thus alienates your soul from what it truly wants and yearns for, and that is to be with god. So the closer you get to god, the more you know his love, the more that sin can not pull you away, and the more you live in gods love the more sin is not interesting and tempting anymore.
  • Our souls yearn to bask in the peace and love of God, and that is why Jesus being fully god, could also be fully human and not sin.
  • This is true freedom, and this is what god wants for us all.

    Jesus was the answer to our fall and our redemption

• Jesus was fully man and fully god. But Jesus would redeem the fallen man as a man, that is decendant of fallen men.
• Where adam lost everything in the garden, jesus would take it back on the cross.
  • Where adam fell to sin Jesus would not
  • Where adam was disobedient Jesus was obedient
  • Where adam lost his glorified body, jesus would restore it.
  • where adam owed a dept that he could not pay, jesus would pay it for him
• Because the image Adam bequeathed to the human family was damaged and disfigured by sin, Christ comes to reverse what Adam did by reshaping our image in the likeness of his own (Col 3:10;Rom 8:29;1 Cor 15:49) — from the Ignatius Study Bible.
• This would be a good place for my article on the temptation in the desert where adam fell to three fold concupicense, Jesus would not, and instead give us the antidote to three fold concupicense, Prayer Fasting and alms-giving.

Chapter 19: Jesus begins His ministry and forms His new church

Jesus gathers his disciples

• He gathers unremarkable men. God does not call the equiped, but equips the called.
• This is not the normal thing that a great teacher would do,
  • They would surround themselves with great thinkers and preachers
  • Jesus instead chooses average men that have fallen and gotten back up, and learned from their mistakes. They were faithful Jews, but ordinary in every socially accepible way.
• They come from all walks of life from fishermen to doctors from tax collectors to tent makers.
  • but they all loved god.
• All were single except for Peter. Explain the significance of this.
  • I think for the 11 it was about being able to give up everything for god, but for Peter a husband and likely father would make him a better pope and patriarch.

Jesus assigns Peter His Pope (& Steward)

• use the reflection called “Jesus’ new church and His steward” explaining how the office of steward (from isaiah) binds and looses and controls the kingdom while the king is away, and it is a perpetual role, that cannot remain unfilled.
• he sets Peter as the leader of his disciples and names him the rock. Explain the different meanings of cephas in aramaic, versus Petros(as) in Latin
• He give peter the keys, and gives him the power to bind and loose, the power of the steward. The Pope

Jesus appoints his apostles (His Bishops)

• He gives his 11 other disciples the name apostle (meaning “sent”), he sets them apart from the rest of his disciples, and give them the mission to bring the gospel to the world.
• He makes them leaders of the disciples (bishops) and give them too the power to bind and loose, but their power is slightly different.

Jesus Establishes his new church in the upper room on the eve of His passion

• This is his new passover dinner, It will lead to a new exodus from sin.
• It will establish a new temple in our bodies, and a new sacrififice in the eucharist.
• Jesus at the last supper begins the process of establishing the new and final covenant with man (the 7th covenant) the messianic covenant.
• but it will take more than a meal and some nice words, it will require all of the aspects of a covenant
  • The covenant mediator who makes a sacrifice ratified by an oath, and the consummation of a shared meal. Jesus was all three.
  • It will be marked by a “sign” by which the covenant will be celebrated and remembered for all time, and
  • And this covenant will contain conditions (or curses). And promises or blessings if followed
  • Details of the covenant in a later chapter. But
• This new covenant will be carried out in a new passover meal, and will lead to a new exodus.
  • Mention Scott Hahn’s book and that he talks about the cups of passover, discuss the arguments of the 4 cups of the passover
  • He does not drink the 4th cup at dinner.
  • But this passover is different, because they do not drink the 4th cup. instead they leave before the passover is complete.
  • They leave because this passover will not be completed until he drinks it on the cross.
  • they walk out to gethsemene singing psalm 118, which ends “the stone which the builders rejected have become the cornerstone”

Chapter 20: Jesus bargains with the devil

Jesus battles with the devil, In the garden of gethsemene, offering His passion and death for our sins

• Gethsemene was an olive tree garden, that had an olive press in the middle.
  • this is how they would get olive oil, they would crush olives under a stone wheel and extract the oil.
• A similar thing is happening with Jesus here.
  • He the perfect fruit of god is being pressed with the weight of our sins, and the wonderful oil of salvation is extracted for us.
  • Jesus gives his life for the salvation of the world.
• The devil pours out the weight of our sins on the Lord, and he sweats blood.
  • this is a real physical condition that accompanies high stress
• The Devil taunts Him saying that no man carry that weight.
  • I believe that jesus was recalling the temptation of the desert, and the souls that could be saved if he simply gave the devil what he wanted.
• But the only way to really save us is by dying for us. As we will see, but this weight was real and it was for all time, all the souls that ever did and ever will live.

He makes a bargains with the Devil saying: “I will die for them, take me, the son of God as a ransom for the souls of all of the lost and damned.”

• He said that there is no greater gift than to lay down one’s life for another.
  • he his mortal life (suke), in order to invite us into eternal life (zoe), with him in heaven forever.
• He was the ransom that would be paid for our salvation.
  • ransom theory is promulgated by St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his work “the great catechism.”
• But Jesus was fully a man, and as such in that fallen human state He could die.
  • But his death would be different because he was also fully god, and cannot be held by the clutches of death
• That is why He was the perfect ransom, only God could do this.
  • Fulton Sheen described it best when he wrote: “Jesus paid a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a debt that we could not pay.”

Chapter 21: The Devil accepts the bargain

The devil in this moment, saw only a, weak & frail human man, not the 2nd person of the trinity, God Himself

• In the garden Jesus temps the devil with the idea of having Jesus be his prisoner in death for all eternity.
  • the devil accepts the bargain because he only knows pride lust and greed and cannot understand that Jesus in this moment is offering perfect, prayer, fasting, almsgiving.
  • Jesus is perfectly obedient to God, and The devil is exactly how he always is perfectly selfish and shortsighted.
• For the devil imprisoning Jesus in death is not as good as having Jesus worship him but it is a second best alternative

Satan lusted after the idea of being the lord over the soul of God’s only son, and in exchange handed over all of the souls of the lost and the damned

• Satan did not care at all about the other souls of the lost and damned, because to him no soul could compare to the control of having the soul of God’s Son under his dominion.
• he gave up all of his power and dominion for this one moment
• And in his orgasmic pride lust and greed he agreed to the bargain.

Chapter 22: Jesus pays the ransom

But for Jesus this would not be a simple exchange, He would ultimately endure the full depravity of our sins, and ultimately cost Him everything

• He would have to feel the weight of all of the sins of mankind pressing down upon Him.
• Like the wine press He would shed His precious blood for the life of the world.
• this exchange would cost Him everything, but it would give us everything in exchange, and save us from slavery to sin.

He would have to endure the greatest suffering any human has ever felt, and then die in excrutiating pain.

• He would take our stripes, the crown (helmet) of thorns, and the death on the cross as payment for the eternal disposition of our souls.
  • this death was the worst death immaginable
  • Deuteronomy 21:22–23 says that there is a curse attached to anyone that dies on a tree
  • It took hours to die, and you would eventually drown by the accumulation of fluid in your lungs. Suffocating and in excruciating pain.
  • They were usually humiliated by being naked, and placed on high for all to see.
  • They were left for hours to let birds and wild animals eat at their flesh while they were still alive.
• He would finally know the total cost of enduring the utter depravity of our sins, and in some of his very last words on earth He would plead with the Father saying: “forgive them, they know not what they are doing.”
• But in his greatest suffering is his greatest triumph, because he say “now is the son of man glorified” and “behold I make all things new” — revelation
• Colossians 2:12–14 — breaks the legal claims of the devil on our souls, and nails them to the cross.

Chapter 23: Jesus descends into Sheol

Like many before him, and He would then descend into Sheol to Join the dead, but this is where the wager with the Devil ended

• Sheol, means hades or hell, but note that it was not the same as our modern conceptions of hell
  • Sheol had two parts the place of the damned called Gahenna, where the fire is not quenched and the worm never dies.
  • and the place that good souls were waiting for the messiah called Abrahams bosom (aka limbo of the fathers). This was not heaven, but it was a place of happiness for those souls destined for heaven.
• Jesus goes down to this realm, but we don’t exactly know what he did there.
  • Some scholars say that, like the road to Emmaus, he opened up the scriptures to them, explained the prophecy and asked them the question of whom they would like to worship, and where they would like to go
  • There are even some scholars that suggest that maybe he even offered this question to the damned souls in Gehenna.
  • But we know that He was there for 3 days, and in that time he utterly changed that realm for all eternity, and essentially closed the doors to sheol forever.

Jesus is GOD, He cannot be held by the confines of death, He cannot be enslaved by one of His own creations

• The devil thought that he could hold the god of the universe in the confines of death.
• The devil thought that he had caught the lord in a trap of God’s own design.
  • God created natural law and made himself subject to it because of his love for us.
  • He also allowed death as a just consequence for our sin.
• Thus the devil thought that he could also trap Jesus in the jaws of death as well.
  • This would be like a fly imprisonning a horse. He may want to, he may delude himself into thinking he can, but it is impossible.
  • The fly is only an annoyance to the horse but in no way his master.
• But just because God subjects himself to the order of his eternal and natural law, out of love for us, does not mean that He is bound by that. He is God and can do anything He wants.
• The devil may have seen him as just a man, but we know that he is god, and no matter what the devil thinks he was doing, he could never contain the god of the universe.

He outsmarted the evil one, He freed all of those souls locked in the prison of death, and raised them all up to Heaven

• But to take the argument even further the lord is not subject to the consequence of death because of sin, because He never sinned.
  • Instead he took on the consequence of death in exchange for us
  • and in-so-doing, that act saved us from that same punishment.
• But we know that Jesus broke the walls of the prison of death, and brought the righteous with him up to heaven. Adam and Eve, Abraham, the good thief Dismas, and all of the other great patriarchs and even the average souls that were locked in that prison of death.

Chapter 24: Jesus ascends into Heaven

But more importantly for all of us today, He opened up the gates of Heaven, to anyone who believes in Him

• Jesus closed the gates of sheol forever because of his saving action, but He also opened the gates of Heaven for the rest of time.
  • Many mistakenly think that the gates of heaven were always open before this moment, and that heaven was always the destination for all good souls after they die. But they weren’t.
  • Before Jesus died there was no way to get to heaven.
  • But Jesus’ saving action changed all that.

Because of God’s love, and Jesus’ sacrifice, His offer of salvation overcomes death and His “salvation” is thus granted to anyone that asks for it

• As St. Paul said: “The wages of Sin are death,” and this is further confirmed by the lesson of noah. Death is the righteous punishment for sin.
• and so Because of our sin, and the devils dominion over the sinners of this world, prevented them from breaking out of the prison of death.
• But Jesus changed all of that, he destroyed the prison of death, and by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, He now offers us salvation that overcomes death, or at the very least gives us an alternative to death.

Chapter 25: 7th Covenant (Messianic) - The Covenant of Eternal Communion

Setting: The temple & throne are lead by usurpers, Israel is controlled by foriegn kings, and the people are weighed down by heavy burdens

• And this is how we come to the final covenant. Jesus gives His life for us. and insodoing saves us from slavery to our sins.
• It is not a small thing to say that when Jesus entered into time, died on the cross and ressurected himself, that the world was forever changed.
• before this moment man was fallen, lost to sin
  • The king is not a jew, the leaders of the church are not levites, all usurpers. They are ruled by pagans, and the people are not being shown the way
• god was sheppherding us back to him through his covenants, and his loving protection
• but when the sin crept back in and the covenant was broken, man fell back into a state that was worse than the first
  • We rarely see the cost of our sin. But our sin hurts God more than we can imagine, our comprehend.
• A new covenant was needed, and that is what Jesus brought us.
  • But instead of writing us off completely and starting over.
  • He decides to send us himself, to show us how to live, teach us how to love, and to show us how to humbly sacrifice.
  • His son lives the law, teaches us the gospel, and substitutes his life for the sake of the world.
• Must recall the jubilee and the day of atonement, every 50 years, and when a new king is crowned.

Purpose: Jesus in this final covenant, comes to saves us from slavery to sin, and open the gates of heaven to all those that believe in the Lord

1. The covenant was between god and Jesus for the whole world. His role was that of royal high priest. The form of the covenant was the church.
   • The sacrifice — Sacrifice of the God Man Jesus, on the cross
   • The Oath — God promised that if you eat His body and drink His blood you will have eternal life. It is an everlasting oath.
     • IMPORTANT: John 6 should be explained thoroughly here.  — Jesus repeats his message 5 times
   • The Consummation — the eucharist is the meal, that is shared between god and man, it is the window the connects heaven and earth. It is a continous and everlasting covenant, that is renewed at every mass. It is a todah (thanksgiving) offering. but in this case the animal is Christ Jesus, and the Bread is Christ. Jesus, and we are to consume it all in order to seal the covenant. It is a celebration, and it is a meal that is shared with your whole family.
     • Just like melchizadek bestowed the priesthook on abraham… the same priesthood that god gave to adam, and the same priesthood that was passed down from abraham to isaac and jacob, and ultimately to the tribes of judah.
     • The same priesthood that was lost by the golden calf incident by the jews in the desert, and replaced with the sasserdotal priesthood of the levites and later the pharisees.
     • jesus is now restoring that original (patriarchical) priesthood to us all,
     • and not only that, but restoring the roles of prophet and king that were lost as well.
2. The Sign - The sign of the covenant is the eucharist
   • The eucharist does not take his essence and transform you into him, it is acutally like a marriage where you maintain your individuality, but at the same time are bonded in a union that makes you into to a new creation in Him. Peter Kreft writes about this:
     • “with the Eucharist you are now “in” Christ, not outside; you are no longer part of the audience. He is really, truly, literally in you, in your soul, and you are really, truly, literally in him. He is the Head, and you are the Body, and Head and Body are one person. It’s like marriage, where the two really, truly, and not just symbolically, become one—and without losing their individuality but fulfilling it.”
3. The Curses - you must follow the new covenant, and eat the body and blood or you will have no life in him. But this curse only last as long as you are out of the state of grace. Jesus also promises that if you stay close to the sacraments, go to mass and confession that you can restore this covenant over and over through faith and supplication.
4. The Blessings - God’s law would be written on men and women’s hearts, God fulfills all the promises made in the previous covenants
5. Discuss CCC 66–67, 73, 1965–1974, 613, 762, 1967–1968, 1349

Message: Only by God's infinite love and mercy can we find salvation, and peace in heaven

• Virtue: Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves.
• Intimacy: Inside Us, as the eucharist and by the work of the holy spirit
  • Jesus is now with us, first in that we walked with us, and now in that he communes with us in the eucharist. The closeness that God yearns to have with us is full, but it is not complete, that does not come until the end when we walk with him in heaven like adam and eve did in the garden.
• Salvation: He justifiies our sins, and sanctifies our fallen nature
  • Jesus is the way and the truth and the life and that nobody comes to Father except by Him.
  • His death is the ultimate sacrifice, and the ultimate total gift of self on the cross
  • IMPORANT: Every time a sinner sins, and reconciles, the covenant is renewed, and the bond of blood is re-established, because at every mass, we re-participate in His covenanatal sacrifice, and we renew the covenant.
    • It is and everlasting covenant, it cannot be broken by our sin because it is a covenant that covers all sin for all people until the end of time.
    • It is kept and broken in every single human soul, and through the choices each of us make every day.
    • We must choose for ourselves, when we break it, and when we renew it. God is always waiting for our choice to turn back to him.
    • Rejecting gods word, and his commandments leads to an eternity with Satan in Hell.
    • It must be restored at mass, over and over, in the eucharistic celebration.
    • I happens everyday in every sinful soul that turns from the world and all of it temptations, and turns toward god.
    • All of heaven rejoices when one sinner turns away from his sin.
  • not just at the consummation of his passion and death but for all time.
  • every covenant before this point had a beginning and an end (when we sinned)
  • god’s new covenant is for all time, and for all people that have or will ever live.

Resurrection

For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. — 1 Corinthians 15:16–19

Chapter 26: Jesus Overcomes Death

If Jesus’ body had stayed in the tomb, nothing on earth would have ever changed - Jesus had to come back, to show us that He had overcome the finality of Death

• His ressurection proves that he overcame death, and makes it impossible to doubt.
  • Jesus was not mostly dead, he was completely dead (3 days)
  • He was not healed by a shaman,
  • He raised himself. This has never been done.
  • He did this to fulfill all of the prophecy.
• His resurrection is one of the most attested to facts in history
  • recount all of the evidence from 500 witnesses in the book of “acts” from Josephus, and from the roman scholar ??? That attested to his death and resurrection.
  • cannot discount the books of the bible, they are just as much a historical account as any of the other books written about any other historical figure.
  • burial cloths prove it. Shroud of Turin and the face cloth provide evidence of the resurrection.
  • sign of Jonah prophesied it.
• C.S. Lewis’s tri-lemma, lunatic liar or lord.
  • once you eliminate the first two you have to admit that He is who he says He is.
  • The history thoroughly debunks the first two

His resurrection proves that He is God, and cannot be held by the clutches of death

• But because he died and rose again we can KNOW that he is lord, and if He is lord, then we have to take him and his teachings seriously.
• If he did not rise, and his disciples stole the body, then this whole thing would have disappeared from history, and no one would know the name Jesus
  • discuss roman soldiers would lose their life if they lost their charge.
  • Many people will die for a belief that they think is true…, like terrorists and fanatics, but NO ONE dies for a belief that they know to be untrue
  • The apostles all died (accept John) horrible deaths because they refused to renounce the man Jesus and his teachings.
  • So we know that this is true, it has to be, no other explanation makes any sense.
• But we do know it, and he is the most influential figure in all history, and that is because he is who he said he is…, God.

Chapter 27: Jesus shows us how we too can overcome death.

By joining our will with His, we too can overcome the cost of our sins and the grasp of death, and enter into eternity in Heaven with God forever

• Peter Kreeft in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:1–19 says that Paul says that christianity depends on the resurrection in 6 ways.
  1. Without it, our preaching is empty
  2. Without it, your faith is empty.
  3. If it did not happen we are liars.
  4. If Christ is not risen, “you are still in your sins.” You can’t be saved by a dead Savior!
  5. If Christ is not risen, “then those who have died in Christ have perished.”
  6. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied,”
• Peter Kreeft in his commentary on Romans 5:12–19 says “There are two kinds of death, physical death and spiritual death. Both kinds. Jesus’ physical Resurrection saves us from physical death; we rise too because he rose. And Jesus’ death on the cross saves us from spiritual death, from the eternal exile from God that our sinfulness justly deserves.”
• in my commentary on Luke 20:27-40 Jesus tells us that there is a resurrection of the dead
  • he uses the book of the torah to prove to the sadducees that there is life after death.
  • This is the life that we are promised as well.
  • We too will be resurrected into a real human body, and the good will go to heaven and the damned will go to hell.
  • This is also affirmed in jesus’ commentary on maccabees, and that we must pray for the dead.

  • All this is only possible through his resurrection.

    Kingdom of Heaven

    “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” —1 Corinthians 2:9

Chapter 28: The Church Triumphant

From the moment Jesus died on the cross He began a new age, and began the work of building the Kingdom of Heaven

• All of the history of creation can be broken down into 3 ages.
  • The ages of the christian world are marked the moments of trinity. And their impact on the world.
  • As we learned in chapter 5
    • The first is age of the Father
    • The next is the age of Jesus,
    • The last is the age of the Holy Spirit
• We are in that last age right now. And will be until our end or the ultimate end of time.

Jesus in his ministry said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and indeed it is

• In Matthew 10:7 the gospel writer says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What does this mean?
  • This promise means that the we are to begin the construction of God’s kingdom right now in this world.
  • He even says it will happen in The lords prayer, it talks about “thy kingdom come thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
• What is Heaven going to be like?
  • Eye has not seen and ear has not heard…
    • Saint paul quote about heaven.
    • Thomas Aquinas discussion about heaven
    • st. teresa and that all of the worlds trouble will seem like a night in a bad hotel compared to the glory of god.
• How will that heaven look on this world in this time
  • Use my cursillo CIA talk to explain this in more detail.
  • It will be a place where we love God with all of our hearts and mind and body, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Jesus is the cornerstone of the great Temple in Heaven, and every soul that dies in a state of friendship with the Lord will eventually go to heaven

• We are to build his kingdom now…, we are the bricks of the new temple
  • we do this by living in a state of grace
  • And dying in the loving friendship with God,
  • When we do this we will go to heaven, and we will join the full body of christ, and build that great temple.
• Doing so, we will fulfill all of the promises that the prophets told us about what heaven will be.

Each one of them will become the bricks that are laid side by side with Jesus (the cornerstone) to make the walls of that great church of God

• Describe the golden palace analogy, with beautiful sights, angels and saints everywhere, and in the middle the trinity.
• Explain what revelation says about heaven.
• The kingdom will be like the prodigal son.

Chapter 29: The Church Suffering

When Jesus overcame death, He also overcame the devils hold on all of the souls under his dominion

• both those that had already died and were in sheol,
• but all that would come after, including you.
• This place of suffering is called purgatory
  • God love is so perfect that he knows that we need help to be purged of all sin.
    • You must be cleaned before you can enter heaven. Revelation 21:27 says that nothing unclean can enter heaven
    • But only once we are clean we can enter into heaven and be in His pressence.
    • And so the reality of purgatory is a gift, that god gave us that allows to go from sinful and fallen, to glorified, without having to die a martyr or a saint.
  • what we know about purgatory from the bible.
    • Use the evidence on purgatory given by john Martingnoni in the article saved in the pax christ references.

But the degree to which we are close to God in heaven is still our choice, and that is the point of purgatory

• Our reality in heaven or hell is a choice we make based on our attachment to sin, and our love for God. It is not a punishment or a reward.
  • First you must understand that God is a burning fire of love.
  • But this fire is different than any other kind of fire, God’s fire only burns away one thing…, sin.
  • your attachment to sin determines how close you can get to Him.
  • Perfect, sinless beings like mother mary, can sit at Jesus’ right hand, She has no attachment to sin, and is as close to him as possible.
  • next are the angels, martyrs and saints, who lived and died for Him
  • next are the rest of us, and our position in heaven is determined not by how much god favors us, but by how much we have chosen to reject sin and love Him instead.
• Our love and adoration for God, and our detachment from sin determines how close we will be to god in heaven.
  • our suffering is not a punishment from god but a result of our inability to let go of all of the things of this world, and to instead want the only thing that matters, God.
  • if you wallow in hell it is not a punishment from God it is your choice to be away from Him
  • And if you bask in his glory in heaven, it is not a reward, it the result of how much you love.
  • God will give you for all eternity what you most want in this world. Choose wisely.
• The crowns in heaven are:
  • Mary’s crown of 12 stars
  • The red crown of martyrdom
  • The white crown of sanctity
  • The ??? Crown of righteousness.

Chapter 30: The Church Militant

But while the devil was defeated in Jesus’ death on the cross, the war between Heaven and Hell had just started

• A great spiritual war is raging for the eternal souls of every human being that has ever lived.
  • We are in a great battle, but the end of the war is already known.
  • revelation tells us how this battle ends, with the mother mary stomping on the head of devil and putting all of gods enemies under his feet.
• possibly discuss the things that will proceed the end, and how we are to navigate them.
  • the tribulation, the warning, the time of peace, and the time of suffering, and then the reign of the divine will

Satan’s dominion over the lost sinful souls was forever gone, but the battle for the souls had just begun

• It is not until the physical death of the body that a souls eternal fate is sealed, and so until that time we must strive to reject the evil one, and turn to the lord.
• that is why the battle is so important, because until the end they all can still be saved

Corrupting souls and stealing them away from eternity with God in Heaven is the only thing gives the Devil any pleasure

• the devil’s only job any more is the stealing away of souls from eternity with god in heaven.
• He knows what awaits him, he knows that he can never defeat god, and he knows that he will be destroyed.
• But the one thing he can do is hurt god more. And he hurts God by corrupting and stealing souls from eternity in heaven with Him.
• And he hurts god the most when those souls are children and the innocent.
• So that is what the devil spends all of his time doing, Spiting God Despite himself.

So, saving souls is our role in this great war

• we must learn to protect ourselves from the temptations and snares of the devil,
• and we must also dive into hell to save those souls that have fallen for the evil ones lies and empty promises.
  • The gates are a defensive weapon, we are not fighting gates, we are to storm those gates, and knock them down, because the lord says that they will not stand against us, and we are to dive into hell and bring out as many souls as we can.
• It is not enough that you simply believe, you must devote your life to helping others to believe as well,
  • We must do this before the end of time, because by then it will be too late. We cannot and must not lose.
• and when they finally come to believe…, to change their lives and align their own wills with the will of God, then the defeat of the evil one will be complete.

Chapter 31: The Lost & The Damned

The Devil knows that he lost and he knows what awaits him…, Hell

• What we know about Hell.
  • You will have a body, and will be tormented in that body by the devil and his minions for eternity
• For those that reject god Hell awaits.
  • If you die in hatred of god, in loving attachement to your sins, God will give you for all eternity what you want most.
• Hell is not a punishment it is a Free Choice
  • Remember that burning fire of love that Burns away only one thing, sin.
  • God does not punish those that hate him, hell is a free choice
  • C.S. Lewis says that hell is a prison cell that has a door that only locks from the inside.
  • Those in hell are there because they refuse to let go of their sin, and they cant be in the pressence of gods fire when they are attached to their sin, so they choose to hide in the darkness embraccing their sin, than let it go and bask in the warm glow of gods perfect love.

Justification

“The devil knows your name but calls you by your sin, God knows your sin but calls you by your name.” – Ricardo Sanchez

“In his will is our peace.” — Dante

Chapter 32: We must get right with God, and then strive to stay right with Him

We are indeed saved by Jesus’s death on the cross

• The Catholic Church believes that salvation is a free gift from God, not something earned through human effort or works.
• It is achieved through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sins of humanity. 
• But it is a gift, and a gift cannot be be given unless it is also recieved. God the source of everthing is reaching out a gift to you, The point of this life is to learn how to recieve it.
• We do that by reconnecting with the source of everything, God.
• remembering what I said at the beginning about ese and esentia, we are composite being of an mind (or intellect), a free will, and a body that has physical form. These things constitute our ese and our esentia that was given to us from god. Part of it we share in communion with Gods ese and part of it is our own essence that we have total control over.
• These things are separate, but they are meant for total connection with the source God.
• Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. - When we fall away, we must reconcile, and then you must return to Him
• But what about all of those that have sinned and never know the seriousness of their sin, and never asked for forgiveness? What about those that have created great evils, like murder, that cannot be reconciled in this world? What about those that caused sin that is passed down from generation to generation?
• Who reconciles that sin? Jesus on the cross. He stands in as the victim of all of that sin, and he forgives it. And offers us all a path to reconcilliation.
• If our greatest desire is to rest in thee. To reunite our esse and essentia, with gods, to be so connected that the two are indistiguishable then it is only through christ that that can happen.
• The prodigal son story — Explain how it tells the story of salvation, and gods loving plan of reconciliation.
  • compare the prodigal son to an anology of our life’s journey.
  • We all have a story of falling away and finding our way back. This is the process of sanctification.

We are made right with God through baptism and participation in the sacraments

• sometimes called initial justification
• We justify ourselves and reconcile that sin by moving closer to God in the sacraments.
• The Council of Trent declared in 1547 that our justification in Christ, which takes place in Baptism, transfers us from the fallen family of Adam to the glorious family of God (Sess. 6,chap. 4) (CCC 1250). — from the Ignatius Study Bible.
• Baptism, along with faith, removes the guilt and condemnation of sin and restores a person's relationship with God. 
• The sacraments, particularly baptism, penance, and the Eucharist, are seen as important means of receiving grace and growing in holiness.
  • Baptism and confirmation bind us to him forever as his beloved child, and it washes away the stain of sin left by adam and eve in the fall.
  • Reconciliation reconnects us with him when our sin takes us away,
  • The eucharist is the bread for the journey that slowly transforms us from an essentia that chooses our own will into an essentia that is completely and totally bonded to god in all that that means.
  • Marriage and holy orders give us the mission for our lives, and the vocation that will lead us to the greatest holiness.
  • Finally annointing of the sick prepares us for the final journey into eternity.
• This is the point of our lives and our faith and everything that we are, to be reunited with god, not as we see it, or want it but as He does.

We grow in holiness by living a life pleasing to God, and by cooperating with His grace

• This is called ongoing justification, or sanctification. It is the ongoing process of perfecting yourself in the love of god
• we do this through prayer, sacraments, good works, and striving to live a life of virtue. 
• The Catholic Church views justification as a process rather than a one-time event. It is an ongoing act of God's grace that transforms the individual and makes them more like Christ.
• While salvation is a gift, the Catholic Church emphasizes the importance of faith and works in responding to God's grace. Faith is a necessary condition for justification, but it must be a living faith that is demonstrated through love and obedience. 
• Good works are not seen as a way to earn salvation, but rather as a response to God's love and a demonstration of one's faith. They are seen as a way to grow in holiness and to share God's love with others. 

Chapter 33: In that sanctification you will find the peace of Christ

We were saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved - this is sanctification

• The progression from sinner to saint is not a single moment of your life it is a process, like the plus one theory that moves you slowly step by step to sanctity.
• Guigos ladder is another good example, and the image would be usefull here.
• As catholics we believe that we were saved by Jesus’ death on the cross,
• we are saved, by his love and mercy in the sacraments, and that
• we will be saved at the end of time, through the mercy of purgatory and the final detachment of sin that will be needed to enter heaven.

Jesus died for your sins so that you could be with Him in the eternity of Heaven forever.

• Salvation from sin... restores our relationship with God. This is called “justification.” It then gradually improves both our character and our actions, until we become the holy and happy saints God designed us to be. That is “sanctification.” — Peter Kreeft
• “Salvation” as defined by Jesus and the Church is not an eternity in a garden of sensual delights. Rather, salvation is to share the very life of God. It is to participate in the divine nature, to become a “child” or “son” of God, and enjoy him forever.” — John Bergsma
• if you make it to the end in loving freindship with God, and purge yourself from all attachment to sin in purgatory, you will eventually make it into the glory of heaven and spend eternity with god forever.
• nothing else matters, and nothing is more important. and this is why jesus died for you, so that you can be with him in heaven for all eternity.

Afterword

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." — Mark Twain

Where do we go from here?

• I set out to logically explain the story of salvation, and the gift that god offers you from the cross, how did I do?
• Do you understand better
• Can you see the progression of the fallen from sinner to redeemed?
• Can you see the guiding hand of the Father throughout it all?
• Can you see the reason why Jesus did what he did?
• Can you see what that sacrifice did for you?
• Those are the most important questions of this life. The answer to all of them is Christ Jesus.
• do good resist evil.
• If you are away from the church come back
• if you are not baptised, get it done
• If you are in the church, stay close the sacraments and stay in a state of grace.
• Do not worry about the end of the world but worry about the end of your world (momento mori)
• dont worry about the past, forgive it. Dont obsess on the future, let it happen, instead focus on right now, one step in front of the other, and do the right thing at every turn.
• As augustine said, “love god and do as you will.”
• If you do that… you will find the peace that comes from God, and living in his will.
• So why did Jesus die for us? The answer in the end, is the same as at the beginning, love, always love.
  • He has always loved us.
    • He loved us in creation
    • He loved us in the fall
    • He loved us all through the story of salvation.
    • He loved us on the cross.
    • He loved us so much that he died for us.
    • He loved us when he returned from the dead, and
    • He did all of that so that he could love us forever in heaven.
• When god created the world he spoke a word, and it came to be.
  • so too when he created you he spoke a word. And you came to be.
  • and that word encompassed all that he wanted and willed for your life.
  • What is that word?
  • Are you living that word out in your life, or do you need conversion, and justification.
• He created you out of love and he wants nothing more than to share that love with you. To be in relationship with you.
• god of the universe wants to be in relationship with you. relationship means connection.
• But you must turn to him, and start that relationship. He will not force you to love Him, that is completely your choice.

And at the end of your life will you be able to make the right choice?

• We must reflect on Disma and Gestas.
  • Both of these men lived scandalous and despicable lives. And both of these men justly deserved the punishment of death that had been levied on them.
  • But one of the two, St. Dismas, saw the God-man Jesus for who He truly was, and through a miraculous moment of divine grace understood the offer of salvation that was being presented to him on that cross,
  • and so he begged God to simply remember him when He entered into His Kingdom.
  • This simple act of faith and contrition, was returned by God himself saying to him “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
  • And as a result, This simple first Saint received an overwhelming outpouring of the Father’s love, and a forgiveness. A love that would save his soul for eternity.

I extend to you the peace of christ, I humbly pray that you will recieve it

• Can you feel the peace that Christ is offering you?
• Are you willing to reach out for it, or do you still have reservations.
• I started this book with a humble petition.
  • Will you open your heart to the possibility that this might be true?
  • nothing has changed, only your knowledge of the truth.
  • I end this book with the same petition. open your heart just a little and you will see miracles happen.
• When you finally understand the story of God’s passion, the unfathomable depth of God’s mercy, and the undeserved gift of salvation that Jesus offers to you on the cross - that is Pax Christi
• We cannot go forward from this moment the same, you must either accept or reject, there is no other logical response.
• You can avoid the question altogether, and you can distract yourself from trying to face it, but you cant do that forever.
• Your heart calls out for connection with the lord, and that connection cannot be denied.
• You must choose, and when you do, you must either reject and continue living in sin, our you accept, and you must radically change your life.
• And then when you do change your life, you must live it joyfully, and honestly, and triumphantly.
  • “…there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. But it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.” — Chesterton, G. K.
• I sincerely hope that today, you might start to believe, and then change your life to live in accord with His will.
• It is not a heavy burden, and He will help you carry it.
• But He cannot do it for you, you must ask for His help and forgiveness.
• It is your choice, what will you do? Your eternity depends on the answer. Choose Wisely.

Pax Christi