2/6/17

Christianity Is A Physical, Sacramental, Incarnational Faith

For 1,500 years, Christianity was always a physical, sacramental, and Incarnational faith. This was confessed in the liturgies of both East and West because we confess that God took upon Himself physical human flesh and redeemed us through His physical Blood being shed and His physical human flesh being torn. He chose a real physical woman to bear Himself and be His Mother and point us to her Son, Who is God's Son.

Human beings are not just spirits with shells of bodies. The body makes up the integral part of the human. Romans 8 speaks of the hope of the redemption of our bodies. 

Therefore, the Church in all Her branches has always considered those who deny the efficacy of the Sacraments and those who refuse the physical as toying with Gnosticism, and outside the faith.

God redeems the created physical world through His physical Body and Blood, and applies it to us through the physical means of the Sacraments. Faith in Christ is not naked, but is clothed with the Sacraments. God continually comes to us in the life-giving Flesh and Blood of His Dear Son at the Holy Eucharist, for the continual forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

God does not want to keep us guessing, so He gives us ministers and priests who declare God's forgiveness, who are given the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

God meets our weak faith where we are at, and desires us to look to these objective means. It is not based on how we feel. It is based on God's promises in Christ.

Baptism saves because Christ is in Baptism.

The Eucharist forgives sins because we are eating the life-giving Flesh and drinking the life-giving Blood of the Savior.†

Holy Absolution forgives sins because the Words of Christ Himself are spoken through His representative, His ordained priest.

If Christ says it, it is done.

If Christ does it, it is done.

We are simply beggars, showing others where to find the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.

And He will come again physically with glory to judge both the living and the dead. And His physical Kingdom will have no end.

And our new physical bodies will have no end, and will be incorruptible.

To deny the above, is to deny the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.

To confess the above, is to confess the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.

This Man is God.

This God is Man.

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