{"id":1955,"date":"2018-05-16T18:36:16","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T01:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myagpeya.com\/blog\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2018-09-07T22:16:09","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T05:16:09","slug":"newheresies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/myagpeya.com\/blog\/newheresies\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotes from “New Heresies” by H.H. Pope Shenouda"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Those who fight God’s “justice” deny a fundamental character in it and focus only on his mercy and love.\u00a0If they fight God’s justice in the name of mercy, let them know that the attributes of God are inseparable from each\u00a0other. God is merciful in his justice, and God’s mercy is a just mercy.\u00a0They focus on the love of God, but ignore the many verses that speak of His justice,\u00a0or try to interpret them to follow the color of their own thinking!\u00a0If they quote some of the words of the Fathers,\u00a0they quote them in a concise manner, and take phrases without regard to context. They do the same with their\u00a0\u00a0quotations from the Divine Liturgy.\u00a0For example:\u00a0“You have changed for me the punishment into salvation!<\/em>”\u00a0<\/em>They focus on the word “Salvation”, but they ignore that it is salvation from punishment! Then with\u00a0all audacity, they say that\u00a0God does not punish anyone!\u00a0When they use the phrase “You have removed the curse of the law from me”<\/em> they focus on the work of Christ the redeemer in removing the curse of the law from us.\u00a0And they forget that God\u00a0has placed those curses on anyone who violates His commandments (Deut 27:28). And when the use the words\u00a0“You<\/em>\u00a0sent the law to help me”<\/em>, they\u00a0focus on the word “help”. Yet they\u00a0forget that the law was helpful from a guidance standpoint, but it was also a scale of justice and judgment, so that people are condemned according to the words of that\u00a0Law.\u00a0\u00a0I do not have time to quote all the examples of their quotations.\u00a0But I say that\u00a0in order to focus on the love of God, they deny all words of punishment.\u00a0So they deny the punishment of death, the punishment of [God’s] curse,\u00a0\u00a0and all that pertains to eternal torment!\u00a0They consider that God has no business or economy\u00a0in all this! They say that it is man who caused all this to himself by his free will. We do not deny that\u00a0man is the one who subjects himself to punishment.\u00a0But at the same time it is he who has submitted\u00a0himself to the judgment of God. ” – H. H. Pope Shenouda (New Heresies, Chapter 2)<\/p>\n

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Was the sacrifice of Christ a sacrifice of love or punishment?\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe matter is very\u00a0clear\u00a0which is: The sacrifice of Christ was out of love for us, as well as a fulfillment of the punishment that was upon us, which is the sentence of death.\u00a0So [the sacrifice] combines both together…There is punishment, but Christ carried it instead of us, because of His love for us.\u00a0Otherwise, what is the meaning of the term\u00a0“satisfy the penalty” and “fulfill the penalty”?\u00a0Who satisfied the penalty except Christ?\u00a0And who\u00a0fulfilled the penalty except Christ? All of this was instead of us.\u00a0For, as the Scripture says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all<\/em>”\u00a0<\/em>(Isaiah 53: 6).\u00a0Because of the “sin of\u00a0all\u00a0of\u00a0us”, the Lord Christ\u00a0suffered, died, and was buried.\u00a0Otherwise: Why did he die?\u00a0Were it not for the punishment that was upon us ?!…Here we ask: Is there a difference between\u00a0the Old and New Testaments?\u00a0God – as Scripture says – is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.<\/em>“<\/em> (Heb. 13: 8) “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”<\/em>\u00a0(James 1:17).\u00a0If in the Old Testament “the sinful soul is to die,” the same judgment is in the New Testament\u00a0also.\u00a0We see this in the story of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5).\u00a0We see this with the end of [the life of] Judas “the son of\u00a0perdition” (Jn 17:11).\u00a0We see this in the blows of Revelation…As for the expression that the Son bore the penalty of death at the hand of the Father instead of us to fulfill\u00a0God’s justice, this is not an estrangement from\u00a0the Spirit of the New Testament, as one author says.\u00a0But this is the faith of the whole church, and the\u00a0faith of its fathers and saints.” — H. H. Pope Shenouda (New Heresies, Chapter 3, pp 59-60)<\/p>\n

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16\u00a0 Father’s relationship with the Son on the cross<\/strong>
\n“We return to discussing the phrase ‘The Father did not punish the son, but gave Him up out of love’<\/em> to discuss together an important topic: the\u00a0Father’s relationship with the Son on the cross.\u00a0<\/strong>The phrase ‘the Father punished his Son’<\/em> is provocative because the Son was not a sinner that the Father should punish Him. What is more correct [to say] is that the Father accepted that His Son would bear the punishment of humanity.\u00a0Thus, he sent him as a propitiation\u00a0for our sins (1\u00a0John\u00a04:10). Regarding the phrase “gave Him up out of love”<\/em> we cannot pass it by lightly. But stop at the word “gave”, that is gave Him up unto death of the cross, and gave Him up as a sacrifice for sin\u00a0(Isaiah 53:10) to be counted among the transgressors\u00a0(Isaiah\u00a053:12\u00a0). He gave Him up [to be] wounded for our transgressions,\u00a0\u00a0and<\/i>\u00a0bruised for our iniquities “yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted\u00a0“<\/em> (Isaiah 53: 5, 4) “and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.\u00a0He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb”<\/em> (Isaiah 53: 6, 7).\u00a0 Do we pass by all this lightly and say “gave Him up out of love [only]”<\/em>?!\u00a0– H. H. Pope Shenouda (New Heresies)<\/p>\n

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The burnt offering was made a symbol to satisfy the heart\u00a0of God, who was angered by our sins. Therefore the whole\u00a0sacrifice was offered to God alone.\u00a0It was forbidden for any one to eat from it. Neither the\u00a0offerer, nor his friends, nor the priest himself could eat from it;\u00a0but the sacrifice had to remain burning on the altar day and\u00a0night till it was reduced to ashes.\u00a0That fire indicated God’s justice. But changing the burnt\u00a0offering to ashes was a symbol of the sacrifice’s yielding till the\u00a0end in order that God’s justice might be paid in full<\/strong>\u00a0(Lev 6:8-13).\u00a0Therefore it was said about the burnt offering “It is a burnt\u00a0offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the\u00a0Lord.”<\/strong> (Lev 1:9,13,17).\u00a0There was also the sin offering and the crime offering, which\u00a0were symbolic of God’s justice being paid in full because\u00a0“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”<\/strong> (Heb\u00a09:22). Blood was payment in full in return for death as “The\u00a0wages of sin is death.”<\/strong> (Rom 6:23). The blood of animals was a\u00a0symbol of Christ.\u00a0The Lord Jesus Christ performed reconciliation between\u00a0God and man. This matter was accomplished on the cross\u00a0through atonement and redemption. (Contemplations on the Sermon on the Mount, page 131)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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