Author Topic: What did Jesus mean by earthly things? (Read 843 times)

cassini · « **on:** November 16, 2014, 10:21:16 AM »

'If I have spoken earthly thungs to you, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak to you of heavenly things.' (John 3:12)

What 'earthly things' is Jesus talking about here? When Jesus says I, does he also refer to the Old Testament as 'I'?

Would be very interested in your views. Thanks.

MyrnaM · « **Reply #1 on:** November 16, 2014, 10:51:31 AM »

I could be wrong, but if you read the footnotes in your Bible, it sounds like what is being said is; there are mysteries in life (natural) that can't be explained, and if you don't accept them when I try to explain, how would you believe the mysteries that are spiritual or supernatural.

Again, not sure but anxious to see what others have to say.

Good question! Thanks!

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #2 on:** November 18, 2014, 02:29:24 PM »

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l just typed a 2 page answer, accidentally bumped the stupid hot key on this stupid "Lenovo" keyboard, and the entire 2 pages instantly highlighted just as I touched the Space Bar, which dutifully and automatically erased all the words.

Matthew, can't this platform be modified to automatically save text as it is typed, like up-to-date email systems all use these days?

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Neil Obstat · « **Reply #3 on:** November 18, 2014, 02:30:24 PM »

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Gotta go now, won't be back for a day or two methinks.

Sayanara.

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Neil Obstat · « **Reply #4 on:** November 21, 2014, 01:24:37 PM »

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Okay, I'm back. Hey, isn't it heartening to see how popular a great topic is?!?!

It's so comforting to see how eager everyone on CI is to discuss this important subject.

Quote from: cassini

'If I have spoken earthly things to you, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak to you of heavenly things?' (John 3:12)

What 'earthly things' is Jesus talking about here? When Jesus says I, does he also refer to the Old Testament as 'I'?

Would be very interested in your views. Thanks.

Any good answer to such a question deserves a strong foundation. The Catholic principle at the root of this subject is the following:

Grace Builds on Nature.

Just as the Old Testament was firmly rooted in natural phenomenon and man's perception of spiritual things was cloudy and vague, and the New Testament expands our comprehension of things spiritual, while not losing our firm foundation in our understanding of natural things, so too, the action of grace in our souls is helped by a sound footing in the physical nature of material things. Grace builds on nature.

The focus of the Scripture reference (John iii. 12) is on faith. The word "believe" occurs twice, only surpassed by "you" which occurs 4 times. The faith in question is "your" faith, that is, the faith of Nicodemus; but since it is in the plural number, "your" refers to others also besides Nicodemus, that is, US TODAY.

We do not receive our faith by any act of our own volition or effort or power. Modernism would have us believe that our faith is our own personal creation and that we can make of it anything that we want, because we have the power to create our faith and to destroy our faith, or, such things can happen without our direct, personal action. There is literally NO END to the problems that result in this error, for as St. Pius X said so well, Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies.

But I digress!

Faith is literally a gift from God, and it is something that we get when we ask Him for it. Grace builds on nature, and the gift of faith is a gift of grace. When we trust in God as a child trusts in his father, our natural beginnings provides a basis for grace to work, and this is the firm foundation upon which our faith will be supported with security, as a house built on a rock.

Without that foundation in earthly things, our faith would be built on sand, and when the winds of controversy blow and the waves of infidelity and schism and heresy and sin crash against it, the fall thereof will be great. Grace builds with strength on nature.

There are false religions that make up a 'god' of darkness and say that all material things are evil because nature is evil, and we must rise above all that to achieve our spiritual perfection. That's not the true Catholic religion. Matter is not evil, nature is not evil and material things are not inherently evil. Properly understood and rightly used, nature and natural things are what we have upon which grace builds an impenetrable fortress of faith -- and that's no small thing.

Nicodemus was a man who was well-known as a "master in Israel" (v. 10), yet he was having difficulty believing what Our Lord had to tell him. Jesus was asking him to step up to a higher level of knowledge and to allow his faith to grow, which is not in itself a NATURAL act. It would be an act of God for Nicodemus (or us!) to experience the construction of a strong faith within us, and while it might seem impossible to us, "Nothing is impossible with God." By his cooperation with God's grace he would rise to the new heights of grace and holiness that he could never achieve on his own. (It is this entire dependence upon God that Modernism abhors!) Nonetheless, the faith of Nicodemus would be anchored in nature, and it would be up to him to allow this new life of faith, his "belief," to be constructed upon the rock-foundation of "earthly things," as Our Lord put it.

This, as too all of Scripture, is a lesson for us all. We know about how babies are born, and we have our foundation in our Baptism and our life of grace, and in our Confirmation, then we are asked to see what Jesus means when he says to Nicodemus, "Amen, amen I say to you, unless a man be born again by water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." And our immediate, knee-jerk reaction should not be that of 'the master in Israel' Nicodemus: "How can a man enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born again?"

(BTW, if we truly believe what Our Lord said, we do not come in there and re-write His words in our minds as the Modernist heresy would have us do, and say that unless a man be born again by some metaphor of water and/or some alternative analogy to the Holy Ghost he can thereby be eligible for salvation even if he's invincibly ignorant, or whatever else a Modernist might dream up on the spur of the moment.)

Such a question might be 'natural', but it is not indicative of the right foundation upon which grace would be well built. And Our Lord at that point immediately corrected Nicodemus AND US ALL, by His use of the plural number. Grace builds with strength on nature when the nature is well-directed and true, but the building would be corrupted if it were built on a poorly-directed and false nature. This latter way is what happens with the error of Modernism, where the very foundation of thought is redesigned to uphold a structure of lies and falsehood as if it were somehow respectable.

Entire volumes could be written about this.

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cassini · « **Reply #5 on:** November 22, 2014, 07:27:48 AM »

Many thanks Neil for your contribution. I too was disappointed in the lack of debate in spite of the number of 'hits' on this thread. A forum is a place where one discusses things, not merely reads things. By all means keep away from complicated subjects that one has little knowledge of, as I do, but in open questions like this thread all views would be welcome, for as Neil says, 'entire volumes could be written about this above.

Note that I did not venture my thoughts. I was waiting for someone to open a door for me lest I was missing the point of the Lord's words.

As you know, the question of the order of the world is my pet interest. So for me the Lord was teaching by way of a question which He does occasionally in the Scriptures. It could be he was warning the world that if you reject the gospel of earthly things, you will never believe the gospel of the Catholic faith. Remember the words of St Paul:

‘for the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.’ (Rom. 1:20)

Nothing explains the things that are made better than Genesis. For 5 days the Lord created a 'good' world for the sole purpose of providing man with a place to live, including Himself and His mother. Genesis states the stars were visible to man on the day He created Adam. Thus space-time does not exist, all time being the same throughout the universe. Genesis states God created the earth at the centre of His world and rotated the sun, moon and stars around it to serve man in the following way:

'And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of the heaven,
to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs,
and for seasons, and for days and years.' (Gen. 1:14)

Knowledge of these 'earthy things' enhance belief in 'heavenly things.' However in spite of Jesus's warning, the devil got hold of 'earthly things' by way of the Copernican heresy, then uniformitarianism (long-age earth) then evolutionism. Once 'earthly things' were no longer the belief of mankind, then atheism and Agnosticism now had a natural foundation to build on. Within Catholicism, the elimination of 'earthly things' removed the connection with God in any meaningful way. The 'updating' all 'earthly things' led to Modernism, the 'CORRECTION' needed to update Genesis and the Catholic faith in general. This in turn moved into theology and Catholicism became little more that the religion of man for most after Vatican II. Today, in my Ireland at least, Catholicism is but a shadow of what it was and its reputation has been reduced to a plague that once was dominant on earth.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #6 on:** November 22, 2014, 03:54:34 PM »

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You're welcome. It's the least I could do for you, cassini.

I'm part Irish, at least! HAHAHAHAHA

I've heard how the Faith in Ireland is under severe attack and Vat.II facilitated that.

It gives me great consolation that you, cassini, are there hanging on to what little survives. You are a very important part of Old Ireland. I hope you find friends there who are willing to share it with you!

Recently a thread came up where someone chimed in, "Remember Mass Rocks."

In context, I thought they were talking about 'rock'n'roll' when they said "Rocks."

Then I found out what Mass Rocks was, by watching some video clips of people climbing into the hills and having their Confession heard without ever seeing who the priest was, and assisting at Mass when they couldn't even see the celebrant, and received Holy Communion from a hand that emerged from a parted curtain.

St. Patrick threw all the snakes out of Ireland, but are the snakes now coming back?

I've known Modernists who refuse to recognize the most obvious things right in front of them. I met one in a banquet hall with an enormous chandelier in the center of the room. At one point he mentioned the light in the room, and I replied that it's coming from the chandelier right there. He said, "Chandelier? What chandelier? I don't see any chandelier."

You can't have any intelligent conversation with someone who does that.

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