Thursday, August 14, 2008

Jesus "paid for sin" spiritual direction

Catholics don't have a problem understanding this, but a lot of non-Catholic Christians seem to be mighty confused.

Jesus paid for original sin of humanity. That is why he is often called the "new Adam." (That is also why Mary, his mother, is sometimes called the "new Eve," because through total obedience Mary erased the sin of Eve's disobedience).

But it seems that some people think that Jesus like made some sort of pre-paid debit card against future day to day sin. Um, hello? Why would Jesus warn so strongly against sin if he had "already prepaid at the gas pump" for it?

Protestants and other reformation children from over a hundred years ago had absolutely no problem having total clarity about this distinction. They understood QUITE well that Jesus did not suffer and die so that future generations of humans could sin their asses off knowing it was "pre paid." It's only this recent several generations that have become so irresponsible and self delusional on this subject. Your ancestors knew quite well that Jesus paid for the original sin of humanity, but that a person who is committed to a life of sin and who commits sin is not "pre paid" and is in a heap of trouble with God, whether they "believe in Jesus" or "trust in Jesus" or not. Trusting and loving Jesus does you no good if you think he paid in advance for sins that you are cynically committing in the here and now.