Section 12: "Offer Yourselves To God
In Atonement For Sins That
Offend Him"
The Word Of God Vs. The Lady Of Fatima's Words
Section 12: "Offer Yourselves To God
In Atonement For Sins That
Offend Him"
The Word Of God Vs. The Lady Of Fatima's Words
At creation, God gave man a spotless life in His own image, but Adam "slew" that life by yielding to sin. Because the human race inherited Adam's sinful nature, we are incapable of bringing forth a perfect life with which to "repay" God. In the Old Testament history of Israel, we see that God instituted blood sacrifices to cover Israel's sins and maintain for the Jewish people an authentic spiritual life. But the shed blood of animals was never meant to take away Israel's sin. Rather, God covered over the sin and guilt in an expression of His mercy, and as a type of the perfect sacrifice to come. But He insisted on shed blood for atonement:
"Since the life of a living body is in its blood, I have made you put it on the altar, so that atonement may thereby be made for your own lives, because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement (Leviticus 17:11, NAB).
Man's dilemma lay in his nature: unable to live a sinless life, he continued to sin and to offer God sacrifices in atonement for that sin. It's been estimated that the blood of two million animals was shed by the Jewish priests from the time of Moses to the advent of Christ, yet the sinful nature of man remained, as did the effect of sin. In "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma," Dr. Ludwig Ott affirms this:
"As a deed of a creature (offensa Dei actica) sin is indeed finite, but as insult to the Infinite God (offensa Deipassiva) it is infinite, and accordingly demands an atonement of infinite value. But a mere man cannot supply such an atonement"(1).
God's standard for a perfect sacrificial victim, whose shed blood would repay Him for the image of Himself which was "slain" by Adam, had to be a perfect man. This standard seemed an impossibility until Isaiah was given a prophecy that brought hope to mankind:
"Yet he was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. . . . Yahweh burdened him with the sins of us all. . . . for our faults [he was] struck down in death. . . . If [When] he offers his life in atonement . . . my servant [shall] justify many" (Isaiah 53:5-6,8,10-11, JB).
Propitiation means "satisfaction or appeasement." By Jesus' blood sacrifice, God's righteousness was satisfied in a final way. Paul writes, "In His divine forbearance, [God] had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment." Now, because of Jesus' righteousness, God "justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:25-26, AMP).
Later in Paul's letter, we see that Jesus made atonement not only for our sins, but for our actual sinful nature: "While we were yet in weakness - powerless to help ourselves - at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly" (Romans 5:6, AMP).
By the shedding of His blood, Christ died for all men. John wrote: "And He - that same Jesus Himself - is the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours alone but also for [the sins of] the whole world" (1 John 2:2, AMP).
It is finished. Scripture shows us that God has settled, in the Person of His only Son, the problem of acquiring a God-satisfying atonement. Jesus' atonement is sufficient for every man who ever lived or will live, from Adam to Christ's second coming. And the Scriptures insist that there is only one way for man to apply that atonement to his own personal life - through faith in Jesus. Paul wrote that it was Jesus "Whom God put forward [before the eyes of all as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood] - the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation - [to be received] through faith" (Romans 3:25, AMP).
There had been animosity between God and man, but now there was reconciliation effected by God's grace. It was now the duty of the members of the Church to proclaim reconciliation as an established fact:
"All this has been done by God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. . . . This makes us ambassadors for Christ, God as it were appealing through us. We implore you, in Christ's name: be reconciled to God!" (2 Corinthians 5:18,20, NAB).
Because we are "the church of God which [Jesus] has acquired at the price of his own blood" (Acts 20:28, NAB), we must recognize the conflict between the one, finished atonement of Christ and the "atonement practices" proclaimed by the Lady of Fatima and by the angel who preceded her.
This "angel of Fatima" appeared to the little children three times in the Spring of 1916. During his second visit, he spoke these words to the little visionaries:
". . . . Offer prayers and sacrifices constantly to the Most High. . . ."Make of everything you can a sacrifice, and offer it to God as an act of reparation [atonement] for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. . . . Above all, accept and bear with submission, the suffering which the Lord will send you"(2).
In his third appearance, the angel gave Lucia a host, and to Jacinta and Francisco he gave the contents of a chalice, saying:
"Take and Drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God"(3).
God's word clearly states that Jesus Christ our Lord shed His blood 2,000 years ago in atonement for all the sins of all men in the world. But the angel directs the children to atone for sins already atoned for, and to repair by their sacrifices the crimes of ungrateful men. Because the words of the angel more than imply that Christ's sacrifice was not sufficient atonement, we should consider Paul's word in Galatians 1:8:
"For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel not in accord with the one we delivered to you, let a curse be upon him! (NAB).
In the next verse, Paul expanded this warning to include all of God's created, rational beings:
"I repeat what I have just said: if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than the one you received, let a curse be upon him [her]! (NAB).
(1) Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, ed. in English by James Canon Bastible, D.D., Trans. from the German by Patrick Lynch, PH.D. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, 1974), p. 178.
(2) Kondor, p. 156.
(3) Ibid., p. 157.
