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Notes -
We’re back to the same question of what “believe” entails. Does it entail “believe Jesus’ warnings and statements”, or does it entail “believe he exists”? These are very different, as “believe in his statements” means everything he told us must be done to not be damned. For instance in John we read,
Consider also that both the Greek words for “gospel” and “at hand” were commonly used to refer to a messenger carrying a good message, as in the case (for instance) of a messenger bringing good news about the decisions of a faraway King. If I believe in the Messenger, then I believe in all of the contents of the message. If the messenger says “believe in me or be damned”, I don’t say “I believe you are a messenger”, instead I read and believe the contents of the message. In this case, Jesus came with a message from the Father in Heaven. Most of the gospel is this message, and contains dire warnings to sinners. If Jesus says “those who don’t help the poor go to hell”, we should take him at his word, and not presume that this command is abrogated later. It would make no sense to issue these commands only for the command to later be totally abrogated in the easiest possible way (believing Jesus exists). It would essentially nullify half the Parables as having no utility, because the warnings are useless as all you have to do is believe a being exists. In fact it would be impossible to make sense of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where a rich man was sent to hell forever for being greedy. And it would again be impossible to make sense of the passages about the sinners who say “Lord, Lord” being damned, because Christ’s juxtaposition is between Doing Good to Brothers versus Not Doing Good. The juxtaposition wasn’t “believe I exist” versus not.
I know, I explicitly mentioned that protestant readings of faith involved trust.
It is not the case that believing consists in obedience to what he says (at least, not in the sense that, if you fail to do so adequately, you have not believed). This fits neither Paul, nor Christ himself.
Consider Christ's saying "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
But compare this to his words elsewhere. He condemns, not merely murder, but also anger. Not merely adultery, but also lust. And says that insulting someone merits the damnation of the one doing so! Christ is preaching rigor.
See also Paul: Galatians 3:12: "The law is not of faith, rather "the one who does them shall live by them.""
Paul distinguishes faith from action.
As to that parable, I guess I don't see why that's a problem. Nowhere does it say that those who care for the poor will be in Abraham's bosom.
And the warnings aren't useless. People are damned for those things, and they are bad.
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