It is a curious thing when Mormons reject "the faith". They tend to reject all faith. Ardent love (faith, confidence, trust) becomes its opposite.
While one religion is not just as good as any other -- some are better, some are worse -- religion itself is a substitute for interaction with God. It occupies our time while we have nothing better to do. And what would be better?
To associate with God.
Pure religion is to do good -- to visit the widows and orphans in their affliction and to keep one's self unspotted from the world (as one who knew Christ put it). But religion is no substitute for knowing God. Eternal life comes by no other means. If we abide in religion, thinking it an adequate substitute for coming unto Christ, we fall short.
Both Mormons and Catholics are remiss when they conclude that rites, relics and religion save us. They miss the point. Even thinking one's good works "save" us is erroneous.
Christ gives salvation to those who seek Him out, find Him and ask for it.
I understand that nothing less (and nothing else) will do.
Will
ReplyDeleteHow do you see the ordinances fitting into to your understanding? Certainly, Christ submitted to the ordinance of baptism, his first example. Are you rejecting the need for this ordinance in the rites that will not save us?
Yes... I understand it is not the actual rite that saves us... but we live in a physical universe and the Lord has ask us to submit to a physical sign that we are committed to do His will... and that is to do good, visit the widow, feed the poor and keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
Will,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. Yesterday morning the thought came to me that church is a substitute, or very often a distraction, from doing something better like talking with the Lord. We can learn ABOUT religion, or we immerse ourselves IN religion with the Lord. Agree with you Kathryn; we do need ordinances, but they occupy moments out of the decades of our lives.
James Russell Uhl
15 ¶If ye love me, keep my commandments.
ReplyDelete16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
It has been explained elsewhere by many: the ordinances are but archetypical symbols demonstrating our willingness to walk after the manner of godliness and receive as symbolized. We enter the water to be "cleansed"; we partake of the bread and wine to be "filled"; we kneel at the alter to be "sealed"; we appear at the veil to be "received". These sacraments affect us physically, being performed by men. But they are designed to point the mind toward and prepare the heart for what must occur spiritually, being, in the end, performed only by God.
ReplyDeleteTo believe otherwise is to disbelieve in Him and His power to save. As Paul informed us, He is not far removed from any one of us by an unbreachable chasm of alienation or an unapproachable hierarchy of angels, prophets and priests (see Acts 17:27). For we are His offspring, beloved by Him and the focus of His work and glory (see Moses 1:39). His Spirit is in us, inasmuch as we embrace it (see Moroni 7:16).
Our ascent to divinity is recorded in the bas-relief of these ordinances, etched in our flesh. The "pattern" and "record" is applicable to all who will be redeemed. To see one man's (or woman's) ascent is to see them all, for all who would be saved must do the works of Abraham. They must submit to the same laws, receive the same ordinances, and follow the same Spirit. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:5-6.) All who would be gods will conform to the same "Record of Heaven" and follow the same steps, to fulfill all righteousness.
As Log has reminded us above: if we have received not the Christ, knowing neither Him nor His Father, then we have still got some repentance to do!
ReplyDeleteFort those who keep His commandments are received of Him. This is the promise. And God does not lie. He manifests Himself to those who love Him. (I know this for myself. This is not just religious "theory" to me.)
Nevertheless, I have not heard Him say: "Thou art my son; this day thou art begotten of me", or something to that effect. Rather I am haunted by an ominous warning I heard 35 years ago: "Repent ye! Repent ye! For the day of my glory is come and ye are not yet saved!"
The fact that, lo, these many years, I have not had the heavens opened to me again (save for a few inspired dreams, miraculous events and many fortuitous, blessed circumstances); the fact that angels (known to me) do not yet minister openly nor that I have not seen the Christ, face to face, nor have experienced (so far as I know) His embrace in the flesh tells me I still have labor to perform -- not to "earn" my salvation, but to prepare myself to receive it -- to "work out" my salvation with fear and trembling.
It is an awful thing to trust in God. Think not Lehi thought it "easy" to leave all and enter the wilderness, to wake up each day facing certain death by nightfall, should God not deliver him (and his family) as promised. Lehi -- like Abraham, like ALL the righteous ancients -- put ALL his trust in God. Think of the great ones and what they did: Noah's ark, Nephi's boat; Mahonri's barges. By their sacrifices and sufferings, they literally placed themselves in God's hand upon the mighty deep, cutting themselves off from a world that would otherwise uphold and receive them. They, in effect, sailed unto God.
And so must we if we, like them, are to be saved.