Agreed. That is what I said earlier. Don't get hung up on the verb tenses in Hebrews; they're essentially metaphorical. The point of Christ "sitting down" at God's right hand is that he is equal to God, not a servant.
Oh, I am not "hung up" on the verb tenses. They are just one way the Word refutes what was said earlier. Jesus said that every stroke of every letter will remain until all has been fulfilled. It hasn't, and so the tenses are not just metaphorical. They are there for a reason - His reason!
Sitting down is not just about being equal to God the Father. You have missed a lot of what scripture says metaphorically if you think that is all it is about. It has to do with the fact that His work as High Priest - to atone for sins is now finished, as He said on the cross.
This means that Christ is an eternal priest ("you are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek"). Priests offer sacrifices, eternal priests offer eternal sacrifices.
Absolutely. He is our High Priest. He always has been, He always will be. He "stepped into" time to perform His sacrifice, once for all with eternal results. However, again, the tenses show that the sacrifice is not eternally happening but that it happened once and the results are eternal. Now I know that you don't believe that and I doubt I will convince you - that is the job of the Holy Spirit - if you so desire. I have no desire to change your mind, and I am steadfastly firm so you won't change mine either. I am not interested in debates. That isn't why I stepped in here. But the reasons I did are likely finished. We will see.
That is circular logic. For what "validates" the existence of the church? Scripture. You can't have it both ways. I am not here to argue sola scriptura with you. That is not my intent. You have to decide yourself to trust in man or in God - who is the Word.
The Catholic Church doesn't claim that Scripture validates it any more than your birth certificate verifies that you were born. The Church predates the New Testament by a number of years. The WORD became flesh, not Book.
You're going to have to argue Sola Scriptura with me because your rationale for not demanding a Scriptural account or support for Catholic teaching is insufficient. I reject the need for Scriptural support in Theological matters. It's as simple as that.
The tenses that I gave are the tenses in the original language - the Greek tenses.
First, You don't know that for sure. The Epistle to the Hebrews is argued by scholars that it was written in Syrio-Chaldaic or even Hebrew itself and later translated into Greek.
So your posting another version really did nothing to refute the scriptures given.
The Scriptures you gave did nothing to convince me that they are the actual scriptures.
Neither does your comment about not having the original manuscripts. By comparing all the copies, having an idea of what level they are from the original and with as many of the old manuscripts that they have, there is really relatively little discrepancy. So by extrapolation we really have a reliabe "original" manuscript.
Not at all. You have an "idea" of what might be a reliable manuscript. You are relying on Men and not God. The Church has pronounced that only the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome is declared free from error.
I grabbed this from the traditional Catholic website Traditio.com
The Latin Vulgate Bible was compiled by St. Jerome (342-420) at the request of Pope St. Damasus I (r. 366-384). It is important to know that the original manuscripts (autographs) of the Bible no longer exist. However, St. Jerome in the fourth century had access to manuscripts for his Latin Vulgate that are no longer available to us, manuscripts much closer in both time and text to the original autographs of the inspired writers than the Greek manuscripts available to us now. Moreover, the Latin Vulgate is more pure than the Hebrew or Greek now extant and has been far better conserved from textual corruptions. These circumstances make the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome our best modern reference for biblical accuracy.
The Latin Vulgate is the only version of the Bible that the Church has ever declared to be (by decree of the Council of Trent) to be error-free. The Latin Vulgate has been dogmatically declared to be in conformity with the original text in all that concerns faith and morals.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is a scrupulously faithful, word-for-word translation into English of the Latin Vulgate Bible. The New Testament was published at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament, at Douay in 1609, two years before the King James Version. In 1749-1752 Bishop Richard Challoner revised the Douay-Rheims version and modernized the language. This revision is sometimes called the Douay-Rheims-Challoner version and is the one most commonly found.
The Douay-Rheims translators took great pains to translate the text exactly. Contrary to the procedure of the modern Bible translators, when a passage seemed strange and unintelligible, they left it alone, even if obscure. The modern Bible translators, on the other hand, will often look at an obscure passage, decide what they think it means, then translate it in words that bring out that meaning.
The result is that the contemporary English translations are usually easier to understand, but do not necessarily reflect accurately and completely what the Bible says. Rather, they reflect the biased interpretation and understanding of what particular contemporary translators think that the Bible says."
Not an oxymoron, a paradox. God enjoys giving us paradoxes. God generates himself into man, a virgin birth, victory through apparent defeat, God dying, Time and Eternity meet at the Cross.
Yes..it is an oxymoron. Why do I say that? Because the examples you gave - all the paradoxes - and there are many more, are all clearly shown in scripture.
That is not an answer as to why you say it is an oxymoron. An oxymoron is contradictory statements appearing to be true. Paradoxes are true statements appearing to be contradictory. You are saying that Scripture is the sole source for paradox and all not mentioned in Scripture is oxymoronic. That is a non-sequitur.
But.. there is simply no place in scripture that says He is hanging on the cross out there somewhere outside of creation and at the same "time, He is SITTING at the right hand of the Father outside of Creation.
You are thinking too linearly. It's not at the same "time" where there is no time. Jesus didn't "leave" Heaven in order to come to Earth. He is eternally with the Father. Eternally begotten of the Father, not made. He is consubstantial with the Father. The Father's "name" is Jesus. Remember the words in Isaias 55 "8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."
You sound like the Jews to Our Lord in John 8: Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it, and was glad. 57 The Jews therefore said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you, BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS MADE, I AM. 59 They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
The event of the Passion, Death and Resurrection occurred at a particular span of time roughly 1976 years ago. We are both agreed on that. What I'm stating is: at the Catholic Mass, that salvific action from the Passion and "It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost, to the empty tomb. " is made present to those witnessing and participating.
And it isn't about God "enjoying" giving us paradoxes - it is about Him revealing Himself to us.
And who are you to say God doesn't "enjoy" revealing himself or redeeming us with paradoxes?
And our desire to want Him to, or to rely on our own (or others).So, you still have yet to refute the points made by the tenses.
I have yet to see where you think the issue of tenses alters the metaphysical reality of the Eternal Sacrifice of the Mass. When you've reconciled time, space and Eternity coinciding, you won't have a problem with the tenses.