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WHY DIDN'T GOD 0R JESUS
CHRIST CatholicView receives numerous
thought provoking questions that many experience over the years. Here is one which
seems to include human doubt about why Almighty God or Jesus Christ did not write the bible for us.
CatholicView shares the answer to
this question to all who visit this website. The New Testament is the most important document for it holds the commandments and teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. And it tells how God sacrificed His only son for our sake. Why didn't God have Jesus, an angel or someone write verbatim what Jesus taught and preached? Rather we have 4 Gospels written 100 years after the death of our Lord. Something so important, yet no one during that period took the time to write what was taught and preached by the most important man that walked the earth. And why didn't God the Father write the text as it happened? ANSWER FROM CATHOLICVIEW Why didn't God write the bible? And why
didn't Jesus Himself write down what He taught His disciples and His many followers?
Why don't we have the exact words and teaching of Jesus as He would have written?
Why didn't He leave a body of written work by His Own Hands? The Gospels were written 40 to 90 years after the ascension of Jesus into heaven and the gospel writers were relying on their memories about what happened 40 to 90 years in the past. Yet, they were inspired by the Spirit of God to write down the events of Jesus' ministry so that the story and teaching would stay on course. The Gospels were written for the growing Church's need to figure out what was true and not true about what Jesus taught verbally and what was the meaning of His one eternal sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. But there was someone writing down events almost 4 years after the ascension of the Lord Jesus and before the Gospels were written and that was Saint Paul. He began to write letters to the various Christian communities to explain the depth of the message of Jesus Christ and the meaning of His death and resurrection. Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Romans (the Church in Rome), Chapter 2, Verse 15 the following important words: "They [the new believers who were Gentiles] show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people's hidden works through Christ Jesus." Notice the important words: "the demands of the law are written in their hearts." Saint Paul was making a reference to the words of the prophet Jeremiah who writes about the New Covenant in the Messiah, the future Jesus Christ in Jeremiah, Chapter 31-35: "The days are coming, say the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD, I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the LORD. All, from the least to the greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more." The apostles and most of the disciples did not know how to write since they didn't go to school, and barely knew how to read. Only the privileged and the rich knew how to read and write, and Jesus did not chose most of his disciples from the ranks of the rich and powerful. Instead, He chose the very humble. The only exception to that statement was Saint Paul, who was a Pharisee and learned, Saint John the Apostle, a member of a priestly Levite family, Saint Luke, a medical doctor, and Saint Matthew, a tax collector, and they all wrote either a gospel or in Saint Paul's case, many letters (14 are attributed to him) that became part of the Christian (New Testament) scriptures. Jesus did not write down anything because He wanted FAITH from us, HE wanted total trust, He wanted everything from our hearts. The New Covenant that He set up between His Father in heaven and us, the Church (all believers in Jesus Christ), was to be different. Instead of having a set of rules and a set of exact teachings that would only give way to "legal wrangling" and argument, Jesus wanted a RELATIONSHIP with us, and when we are in relationship with Jesus, then we recognize that the law of God is written in our hearts and our consciences are our judge and guide. Being in relationship with Jesus means that I act out of love and faith, not out of fear and being confined by any written words that Jesus would have written. Instead, by the will of the Father, Jesus wrote NOTHING, nor set anything in stone because He could not put limits on LOVE, and such love that would change me, and open me to the law of God's love written in my heart from my conception in my mother's womb (the teaching Church calls this "natural law"). Notice that in the prophesy of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, the New Covenant was prophesied to have these elements: (1) the new covenant will NOT be like the old one with its written sets of commandments and laws (the Mosaic Law); (2) the new covenant would have believers depend on their hearts and on the recognition that there is a love bond called faith in God that would guide people to bring God's love to every situation until the end of time; (3) and through the new covenant, God would forgive ALL evil doing and remember our sins no more when we accept God's forgiveness and act out of His love and repent and be changed by that love. The Old Law, the Old Covenant has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus by His death and resurrection. For Christians, the Old Covenant is an amazing sign of God's love for His chosen people and God's intervention in human history. God is real. But with Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection, a New Covenant was made between God and ALL humankind. For all those that accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, there is no need for written words because true faith opens my eyes to the law of God written not in stone but on my living, moving, growing, maturing heart. As I grow physically, I hopefully grow in wisdom and spirit to become what God made me to be, His extension in this world lost because it is BLIND to the law of God ALREADY written on our hearts from the moment of our conception. The Old Covenant is fulfilled and ended. We are now in a New Covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus! The NEW COVENANT was made between God the Father and His Son, Jesus (as versus the Old Covenant that was made between God the Father and His people, Israel). My faith in Jesus unites me with Jesus and therefore with the promises of eternal life. I cannot break the New Covenant ever through any action or sin on my part because God the Father made the New Covenant with Jesus. And Jesus cannot break this covenant ever because it is sealed with His blood. My faith in Jesus (and sealed with the sacraments of baptism and confirmation) enables me to break free from the cycle of destructive sin and death, and live in love and life. Being faithful to the Lord is the key to heaven and the source of my being able to live a life united to God's Will. The New Covenant is PURE gift from God the Father through Jesus Christ animated by the Holy Spirit. To me, the amazing and awesome mystery of God's love is not on some stone or written by the Savior Himself. It is in me. It is me. I am God's love. The Creator and my Savior already has written the Gospel in my mind and heart. And once I am able to accept that, no matter what I have done in the past and no matter how BLIND I was to my own uniqueness created by God -- my sins and my selfish, material, human blindness, is forgiven and I can move on to be the living embodiment of God's love and salvation. All because Jesus died for me and rose from the dead for me, so that I could be more than my human blindness to God's creative and salvific love for all and everything in creation. The prophesy of Jeremiah has been fulfilled in Jesus and in us. Praise God! For Christians, relationship with Jesus, which the Church calls GRACE, is what saves me. Nothing else matters. Nothing. Of course, there will be some that say, well, you can say I am in relationship (in a state of grace) with Jesus, but you sure don't act like it. Ah, when someone doesn't act like a Christian, it just tells me that their relationship with Jesus isn't strong enough to remove the blinders of their own selfishness called sin. I liken my relationship with Jesus to be like someone IN LOVE. If you see someone who is in love, they are changed and they would do anything for the other. Sometimes, these "lovers" would have rough patches and arguments because they become blinded by their own self-centered agendas. The same with Christians. We love the Lord Jesus. We have faith in Him. But sometimes, we forget and become blinded by our own self-centered plans and we come into conflict with the Lord, His gospel written in our hearts, and therefore come into conflict with others. Jesus is there with His forgiveness saying, LEARN from your mistakes, and get your eyes back on Me and My love for you. So, the famous bumper sticker, simplistic but true, comes to mind: "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." Alleluia! Jesus tells us to love God with our whole being and love our neighbors as ourselves. Simple. Yet, these commandments demand from me an on-going faith maturing that comes from my own spiritual concentration on my relationship with Jesus. That is what grace is. Grace means relationship (such as I am in good graces with someone, which means I am in a good relationship with someone). When the Church says that someone is in a state of grace, it is simply saying that someone is in the right relationship with Jesus. When one is not in a state of grace, it means that the person is not in a good relationship with Jesus, but is somewhat separated from the Lord and it is showing in their life and actions. So, now you can see why Jesus didn't write anything: He wanted us to be in a state of grace with Him. He wanted us to have faith. He did not want a legalistic people. He wanted a loving people. To be a Christian means that it takes a lifetime to grow in Jesus and to grow in my understanding of the gift of salvation through faith in Him. That is what the New Covenant is all about. We are a new people in the Lord. We are taking each other to heaven and salvation by our common faith in the Lord Jesus and by acting in His Name in everything we do. We are the bride of Christ as described in Revelation, Chapter 21 (please get your bible out and read it and rejoice). We Christians are on that path to be made one with the Lord Jesus. Christ and His Church are DESTINED for each other and to be one forever. I can't wait. Until that time, I will try with all my being to grow in my relationship with Jesus. That is what is going to save me! The Priests at CatholicView _________________________________ "Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show
that they know His law when they instinctively obey it, Please
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