Posted on 06/15/2009 1:42:58 PM PDT by NYer
As a Baptist Sunday School and Bible study teacher, one of the questions that used to nag at me incessantly was this: Why, after such painstaking deliberation in dictating an institutional religion that pleased Him in the Old Testament and that was designed to lead the people to recognize the Messiah when He came, would God then introduce a system in the New Testament Church that was so completely unlike the one He established in the Old? There are innumerable examples of how ridiculous this complete “change” would be, but take the priesthood, for instance.
Priests were the officiators of worship whose main duties, those that set them apart from the “priesthood of the people” (Exodus 19:6), were to maintain the tabernacle sanctuary, offer sacrifices, and facilitate the peoples’ confession of sins through them. God Himself established this formal priesthood, stipulating everything about it in the Law of the Torah. The priests must be descendants of Aaron, the first priest selected by God Himself; their bodies must have no defect in them, because their persons and bodies were an offering to God (like the animals they would sacrifice on the altar); they must be dedicated in a special seven-day ceremony that involved bathing, oils, and sacrifices.
They were clad in special garments. They wore a “coat” woven from a single piece of linen without seam that symbolized spiritual integrity, wholeness and righteousness. The headpiece, called a miter, was made by God’s direction to look like a flower in bloom to illustrate the wearers’ spiritual health and bloom. The girdle, specified by God, was a belt worn around the waist to show that theirs was an office of service to the people.
While in active service to God in the tabernacle, and later at the temple, the priests were to have no marital relations with their spouses. This celibacy illustrated the inherent purity which the priest must embody. Along with offering sacrifices, they were to be the teachers of the people. This was not to prevent the people from learning, praying, or studying the Law on their own; it was simply to protect the people from error. They were also the office of authoritative judgment for the people, a way of justice for them.
This priesthood was so sacred that even the priests’ possible, probable and, later, actual, infidelity to God would not negate it. The people were instructed to officially hear and obey them due to the sanctity of their office, as it was a function of God’s grace rather than the priests’ merit. The priesthood was to be a perpetual institution (Exodus 40:15), as were the sacrifices they would offer Him.
”If this is true, where is the priesthood in the New Testament, after Christ?” I asked myself as a Baptist. It cannot simply be that members of the body of Christ were now “The Priesthood” as I had been taught through 1Peter 2:9 and the Book of Hebrews; not if the Old Testament is to be our example as the Scriptures so clearly say (Matthew 13:52). In the Old Testament, the people were also said to be a priesthood, though still not of the official, institutional office (Exodus 19:6), and St. Peter uses the same wording when he speaks of the “priesthood of the believer.” If the Old Testament is our example, there must also be a formal New Testament office of the priesthood in addition to the priesthood of the believer. The “fulfillment” of the Old Testament in Christ cannot, and would not, negate the perpetual and institutional nature of the office of the priesthood. He Himself said He came to fulfill it, that is to give it its proper orientation and meaning, not abolish it (Matthew 5:17-18).
This was one of the questions that bothered me the more I learned about the Old Testament example, especially after experiencing the epidemic rebellion, disunity, and church-splitting of the sole “priesthood of the believer” propounded in Protestant churches. Although the Scriptures are full of how consecrated and special they are to God, there is little respect for pastors’ authority or office in denominational churches anymore. A sign of the times, of course, but also a sign of a fundamental structural error (and appropriately of the exact nature of the original error) that is now making itself evident; for the perpetual, institutional priesthood was carried forth in obedience in and through the Catholic Church.
Everything about the Old Testament example, including the priesthood of the believer, is both fulfilled and perpetuated in Her, through Christ’s eternal sacrifice, just as the Scriptures teach. The sacrifices Catholic priests make are the single sacrifice pleasing to God: His only Son. This is the Sacrifice pictured and eternally being offered in the heavenly temple revealed to St. John in the Book of Revelation, the Sacrifice initiated and perpetuated by Christ Himself in the words “do this in remembrance of me,” this being the very thing Jesus was about to do — sacrifice Himself. Who obeys this command to the letter, offering and consuming the Blood of the new covenant and the Body which is broken for us, but the priesthood of the Catholic Church? Who officiates at this true and perpetual Sacrifice but the priesthood of the Catholic Church? Who maintains the sanctuary, offers the Sacrifice, and facilitates the peoples’ confession of sin? Who carries forth the descendants and celibacy of Christ’s priesthood with the consecration and the garments? Who administers the official and error-free, authoritative Teaching of Christ? Who but the priesthood of the Catholic Church?
The formal priesthood was to be an eternal sign of God’s wish and order that there be an institutional system in service to His precious people. As Catholics, we can rejoice and rest in the provision, Scriptural nature, and orthodoxy of our beloved formal priesthood. Let us confidently pray for vocations, while striving to meet our own obligation to holiness as part of the priesthood of the believer.
This is a good statement of the fundamental error you guys make.
Christ's sacrifice is "once" and it is "for all," but it is not only in the past. You make this error because you confuse "sacrifice" with "killing the victim". However, Biblically -- look at the Old Testament -- they are not the same!
Killing the victim occurs near the beginning of the sacrifice, but afterwards, the sacrificial gift still needs to be offered to God by the priest, and then usually eaten by both the priest and the person on whose behalf the sacrifice is being offered.
Once you understand this, you need only look at the middle part of the Epistle to the Hebrews to see that Christ's sacrifice, which began on Calvary, is being eternally offered to the Father by Christ the High Priest in the heavenly Holy of Holies. And, simultaneously, we -- the persons on whose behalf the sacrifice was and is being offered -- need to partake of it. Physically. Really. Literally. Just like the Israelites needed to really eat of the Passover Lamb to keep their firstborn alive.
So, you certainly don't need to sacrifice animals. But the true Sacrifice offered to the Father on the Cross and now being offered to the Father on the altar in heaven you most certainly do need, which is precisely what Christ commanded when he told his disciples to "do this" -- that is, offer the Eucharist -- "in memory of me".
Scripture plays a central role. But let's keep all of Scripture in view. For example, 1 Peter 2:9 is quoting Exodus 19:6. In Exodus chapter 28, God promulgates the Aaronic priesthood.
So if Israel's status as "a royal priesthood" was compatible with having a ordained priesthood in their midst, why should the New Covenant not be?
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
If you want to find a church which believes in "assured salvation," I suggest you look in the Yellow Pages under "Baptist".
As for us, we think you have to die in the grace of God. If you're not in the grace of God, having your name on a church membership role isn't going to help you.
Circular argument. How do you know that Matthew, James, Philemon, and Hebrew are Scripture? Because they're inspired. How do you know they're inspired. Because Scripture says all Scripture is inspired, and they're Scripture. But how do you know they're Scripture. Because they're inspired. (etc. -- around and around in circles forever)
Prove to me that 2 Timothy is Scripture. What authority will you cite? 2 Peter 3:16? How do I know that 2 Peter is Scripture? How do I know that 2 Timothy is one of the "letters of Paul" that 2 Peter 3:16 has in mind? How do I know that 2 Timothy was even written when 2 Peter 3:16 was written?
In reality, if you "reject the Catholic Church's work," you must perforce reject the Bible, because it was the Catholic Church that determined and taught the canon of the New Testament, a thousand years before the first Protestants came about. No, we didn't make the books inspired. The Holy Spirit did that. But we taught it authoritatively, and that is why St. Augustine wrote, "I would not believe in the Gospel were it not for the authority of the Catholic Church"
Do you deny that Matthew, James, Philemon, Hebrews and 2 Timothy are Scripture—God’s word? A simple yes or no will suffice.
Are the Gospel of Judas or the Gospel of Thomas scripture? Why not? Who decided?
You must be referring to the two separate times Jesus said...
verse 44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
verse 65, “And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
Yes, I agree with you God is guiding, managing, calling those whom He has decided will believe. That leaves out those not granted faith. Hey, wait...that’s what that “dirty” guy Calvin taught, and Augustine, and Wycliffe, and Zwingli, and Luther, and all of the fellows that argued with what is now taught by the Catholic Church.
Who’s “us”?
I stand on the entire chapter, and draw your attention specifically to this:
Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.John 6:54-57
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.
Where was that purgatory Scripture, again?
That abberation of the truth is just a peek at the error you have been fed by Rome. The believers in Christ (absent all of the trappings) invite you to read the Scriptures delivered, not by Rome, but by the Jewish nation and the writers of the New Testament (incidentally, that includes none of the cronies from Rome).
Oh, they aren’t out of context, they are the point.
And, all of the believers not entrapped by the Monstrosity of Vatican City, have partaken of the flesh and blood of Jesus. We just don’t need to have some guy in a big hat wave his magic wand over a cup and crackers and claim he made it into the real flesh and blood. Ours happened, as the Scriptures say, once. That was more than adequate, since He is so effectual in His ability to save.
Well, then, the seven sacraments don’t really mean what the printed words imply. More deception. Hmmmm.
You guys are welcome to that club. The believers will stick with Jesus Christ Himself.
We all agree that at one time or another, Peter was married. There is no additional reference to Peter's wife or children. For all we know, Peter's wife may have been deceased. The fact that one Apostle had been married does not support the notion that the others were also married. Remember, they accompanied our Lord for 3 years in His travels. No mention of their spouses and/or children. Mark 10:28-31.
Of course they're out of context. Out of 72 verses you picked two non-sequential verses and said I must have meant those, implying that I did not mean the others.
We just don’t need to have some guy in a big hat wave his magic wand over a cup and crackers and claim he made it into the real flesh and blood.
Amazing you can so viciously mock what Christ Himself commands you to do, stressing over and over how important it is (again, ALL of John 6, not just your Deal-a-Meal approach to Scripture).
I'll stick with Christ's instructions, thanks very much.
You're not too big on logic. Too worked up by anti-Catholic hate, I'd guess.
You took this in a direction I didn’t send it. Don’t know why you responded that way. I am simply addressing the one point as to why animal sacrifices are no longer needed under the NT. You are bringing up another issue that I did not mention at all. I didn’t bring up the sacrament of the altar or discuss RCC theology behind it, but you went off into this area all on your own.
Where was that sola Scriptura Scripture, again?
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