What does it mean that Christ is the “first-born of all creatures”?Was our redemption by Jesus a plan of God’s from the beginning? Were we “supposed to sin”?Related, how at the Easter Vigil can we pray: “O truly necessary sin of Adam which was blotted out by the death of Jesus Christ! O blessed fault, which merited to have such and so great a Redeemer!”?Why is it through a cruel death that God chose to redeem us? And how does it redeem us anyways?Since the Fall resulted from the sin
SrSusan: Since the Fall resulted from the sin of Adam and Eve, one one can wonder how “perfect” the world would be if they had never fallen. And yet what we inherit through Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is far greater than any such perfect world. What do we have that Adam and Eve didn’t have before the Fall?Have you experienced any special benefits or graces so far this Lent? What do you expect to happen to you for the remaining days of Lent, to the Solemnity of the Resurrection
pr 13, 4:34 PM
SrSusan: q What does it mean that Christ is the “first-born of all creatures”?
Apr 13, 4:34 PM
DocRuth2Day: tough questions tonight.
Apr 13, 4:34 PM
SrSusan: yes but seasonal at least
Apr 13, 4:35 PMDocRuth2Day: Yes indeed.
pr 13, 4:36 PMSrSusan: I don’t like referring to Christ as a creature but certinly He pre exists us all as Second Person of the Trinity
Apr 13, 4:38 PMDocRuth2Day: I presume that the question refers to Christ the INCARNATE son of God, because as Son of God he is not a creature at all, not one among many or one among three, but as Trinitarian, the very ground of being, the “I am” along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Apr 13, 4:38 PM
SrSusan: You are absolutely correct
Apr 13, 4:39 PM
SrSusan: q Was our redemption by Jesus a plan of God’s from the beginning? Were we “supposed to sin”?
Apr 13, 4:39 PM
Apr 13, 4:40 PM
DocRuth2Day: So maybe the “first born of all creatures” means, not something temporal but first in importance or intention,
Apr 13, 4:42 PM
SrSusan: another way of looking at it but I think it means He was here before His own incarnation
Apr 13, 4:42 PM
SrSusan: or something like that
Apr 13, 4:42 PM
DocRuth2Day: It cannot be that we were “supposed.
Apr 13, 4:43 PM
DocRuth2Day: to” sin. We were supposed to Love. To be God like enough to be able to relate to God.
Apr 13, 4:45 PMSrSusan: I think some saints have said that God wanted to send His incarnate Son even before sin occurred but that might not have been redemtion but another perspective
Apr 13, 4:45 PM
DocRuth2Day: But we know from scripture that as soon as our first parents sinned, it was part of God’s plan to redeem us.
Apr 13, 4:46 PM
SrSusan: yes
Apr 13, 4:46 PM
SrSusan: q Related, how at the Easter Vigil can we pray: “O truly necessary sin of Adam which was blotted out by the death of Jesus Christ! O blessed fault, which merited to have such and so great a Redeemer!”?Why is it through a cruel death that God chose to redeem us?
Apr 13, 4:51 PM
SrSusan: To show His deepest love
Apr 13, 4:51 PM
DocRuth2Day: Maybe one way of thinking about it would be that in the Garden of Eden we were like children, and that as soon as Adam and Even knew that they were naked and as soon as they felt they had to hide from the Father-God they acquired the capacity for a “higher” more adult like kind of relationship with God — at the same time as they lost their innocence. But
Apr 13, 4:58 PM
DocRuth2Day: Necessary Sin. That, I think, is a little like the passage to adulthood. It is WHY we needed a redeemer. And eve the notion of a triune God. Would God’s ONENESS not have been manifested as trinitarian had The SON not been born as a human child?
Apr 13, 4:58 PMApr 13, 5:02 PMSimone29: The crucifixion was the death of a criminal. I n obvious sign that Jesus united and aligned himself with our sinfulness
pr 13, 5:03 PMDocRuth2Day: I still do not KNOW that “the Fall was Necessary” BUT the consequence of our receiving God’s presence back among us as Jesus, that makes a whole other and more precious level of relatedness to God possible.
pr 13, 5:05 PMSimone29: The enemy never wins
pr 13, 5:08 PM
Simone29: Well – since Jesus took on humanity – and it’s sinfulness – the rift between God and man is now not an obstacle anymore –
Apr 13, 5:09 PM
DocRuth2Day: Could God not have redeemed us by some other means? I am not sure. We do pray, in the Stations of the Cross, from Mary’s perspective, about how she KNEW that it MUST BE.
Apr 13, 5:09 PM
Simone29: Our death has already happened
pr 13, 5:09 PM
Simone29: Sin always needs a sacrifice. Sacrifice with blood
Apr 13, 5:10 PM
SrSusan: Theologians some anyway say God could have done redemption in another way but this way showed His love so strongly
Apr 13, 5:10 PM
Simone29: Cause life is in the blood
Apr 13, 5:10 PM
DocRuth2Day: Simone, not sure what you mean. In many ways we die over and over again.
Apr 13, 5:11 PMSimone29: We die to ourselves – but not as a result for our sins – to come back in relationship with God. That part is done for ever by Jesus
Apr 13, 5:12 PMSimone29: Purifying dying to ourselves is – as different as footwashing and baptîsm
pr 13, 5:12 PMDocRuth2Day: Simone, that is what the People of Israel came to believe — and people in many other cultures, BUT didn’t God say it was not the blood sacrifices but a sacrifice of LOVE that he wanted.
Since the Fall resulted from the sin of Adam and Eve, one one can wonder how “perfect” the world would be if they had never fallen. And yet what we inherit through Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is far greater than any such perfect world. What do we have that Adam and Eve didn’t have before the Fall?
Apr 13, 5:16 PM
DocRuth2Day: The reason I think God COULD have redeemed us by some other means is simply that God cannot be constrained. God is, all powerful.
Since the Fall resulted from the sin of Adam and Eve, one one can wonder how “perfect” the world would be if they had never fallen. And yet what we inherit through Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is far greater than any such perfect world. What do we have that Adam and Eve didn’t have before the Fall?
pr 13, 5:16 PM
Simone29: The Holy Spirit in us
Apr 13, 5:17 PM
Simone29: Chance for divinisation
pr 13, 5:18 PMSimone29: Lately I think often about how creation has fallen out of order
Apr 13, 5:18 PMSimone29: Through the fall
pr 13, 5:18 PMSimone29: How easy it was before the fall to live in harmony with nature
pr 13, 5:19 PM
Simone29: I think humankind benefit – but nature is still greatly suffering
Apr 13, 5:19 PM
SrSusan: yes all nature was affected by the Fall
pr 13, 5:20 PMDocRuth2Day: But by giving HIMSELF to us as a sin offering, we are raised to a new level of being . . .
pr 13, 5:21 PMDocRuth2Day: Capable of participating in his redemptive work
Apr 13, 5:21 PMSimone29: Capable and commanded
Apr 13, 5:22 PMSimone29: Which brings us to redemptive suffering
Apr 13, 5:23 PMDocRuth2Day: Yes, Simone, that is what makes the “Happy Fault” happy
pr 13, 5:24 PM
Simone29: Is it fair to say that every time God’s love is « released on earth » His redemptive work is continued?
Apr 13, 5:25 PM
Simone29: Released through using Sporotual
Apr 13, 5:25 PM
SrSusan: i need to think on that
r 13, 5:25 PM
Simone29: Released through using Sporotual
Apr 13, 5:25 PM
SrSusan: i need to think on that
Apr 13, 5:27 PM
Simone29: It is getting hard to write all of a sufden
Apr 13, 5:28 PM
Simone29: I meant to say that I want to think that more through too
Apr 13, 5:28 PM
SrSusan: Yes if love redemption is based on His Love then He is redeeming continally
Apr 13, 5:29 PM
Simone29: We are carrying His love in us and bringing it to the world. Through the Holy Spirit
Apr 13, 5:29 PM
Simone29: This was probably the worst Lent
pr 13, 5:32 PMDocRuth2Day: It is funny-sad that I note, by closeness to our Loving God during the rather extreme suffering of my chemo, I felt free of fear or anxiety and was able to “offer”what I was going through for friends and even people I never met, whoever in God’s plan was most in need . . . BUT during this Lent, even after making the morning Offering sincerely, even just severe arthritic pain or nerve pain, or even the itchiness that might be a sign of relaps could leave me leave whimpering or crying out loud and quickly fo
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