John 7:37-38 has a solution for that acid reflux.
Posted on 10/21/2006 4:52:03 AM PDT by NYer
From Called To Communion: Understanding the Church Today
Editor's note: This is the second half of a chapter titled "The Primacy of Peter and Unity of the Church." The first half examines the status of Peter in the New Testament and the commission logion contained in Matthew 16:17-19.
The principle of succession in general
That the primacy of Peter is recognizable in all the major strands of the New Testament is incontestable.
The real difficulty arises when we come to the second question: Can the idea of a Petrine succession be justified? Even more difficult is the third question that is bound up with it: Can the Petrine succession of Rome be credibly substantiated?
Concerning the first question, we must first of all note that there is no explicit statement regarding the Petrine succession in the New Testament. This is not surprising, since neither the Gospels nor the chief Pauline epistles address the problem of a postapostolic Church—which, by the way, must be mentioned as a sign of the Gospels' fidelity to tradition. Indirectly, however, this problem can be detected in the Gospels once we admit the principle of form critical method according to which only what was considered in the respective spheres of tradition as somehow meaningful for the present was preserved in writing as such. This would mean, for example, that toward the end of the first century, when Peter was long dead, John regarded the former's primacy, not as a thing of the past, but as a present reality for the Church.
For many even believe—though perhaps with a little too much imagination—that they have good grounds for interpreting the "competition" between Peter and the beloved disciple as an echo of the tensions between Rome's claim to primacy and the sense of dignity possessed by the Churches of Asia Minor. This would certainly be a very early and, in addition, inner-biblical proof that Rome was seen as continuing the Petrine line; but we should in no case rely on such uncertain hypotheses. The fundamental idea, however, does seem to me correct, namely, that the traditions of the New Testament never reflect an interest of purely historical curiosity but are bearers of present reality and in that sense constantly rescue things from the mere past, without blurring the special status of the origin.
Moreover, even scholars who deny the principle itself have propounded hypotheses of succession. 0. Cullmann, for example, objects in a very clear-cut fashion to the idea of succession, yet he believes that he can Show that Peter was replaced by James and that this latter assumed the primacy of the erstwhile first apostle. Bultmann believes that he is correct in concluding from the mention of the three pillars in Galatians 2:9 that the course of development led away from a personal to a collegial leadership and that a college entered upon the succession of Peter. [1]
We have no need to discuss these hypotheses and others like them; their foundation is weak enough. Nevertheless, they do show that it is impossible to avoid the idea of succession once the word transmitted in Scripture is considered to be a sphere open to the future. In those writings of the New Testament that stand on the cusp of the second generation or else already belong to it-especially in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pastoral Letters—the principle of succession does in fact take on concrete shape.
The Protestant notion that the "succession" consists solely in the word as such, but not in any "structures", is proved to be anachronistic in light of what in actual fact is the form of tradition in the New Testament. The word is tied to the witness, who guarantees it an unambiguous sense, which it does not possess as a mere word floating in isolation. But the witness is not an individual who stands independently on his own. He is no more a wit ness by virtue of himself and of his own powers of memory than Peter can be the rock by his own strength. He is not a witness as "flesh and blood" but as one who is linked to the Pneuma, the Paraclete who authenticates the truth and opens up the memory and, in his turn, binds the witness to Christ. For the Paraclete does not speak of himself, but he takes from "what is his" (that is, from what is Christ's: Jn 16: 13).
This binding of the witness to the Pneuma and to his mode of being-"not of himself, but what he hears" -is called "sacrament" in the language of the Church. Sacrament designates a threefold knot-word, witness, Holy Spirit and Christ-which describes the essential structure of succession in the New Testament. We can infer with certainty from the testimony of the Pastoral Letters and of the Acts of the Apostles that the apostolic generation already gave to this interconnection of person and word in the believed presence of the Spirit and of Christ the form of the laying on of hands.
The Petrine succession in Rome
In opposition to the New Testament pattern of succession described above, which withdraws the word from human manipulation precisely by binding witnesses into its service, there arose very early on an intellectual and anti-institutional model known historically by the name of Gnosis, which made the free interpretation and speculative development of the word its principle. Before long the appeal to individual witnesses no longer sufficed to counter the intellectual claim advanced by this tendency. It became necessary to have fixed points by which to orient the testimony itself, and these were found in the so-called apostolic sees, that is, in those where the apostles had been active. The apostolic sees became the reference point of true communio. But among these sees there was in turn–quite clearly in Irenaeus of Lyons–a decisive criterion that recapitulated all others: the Church of Rome, where Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom. It was with this Church that every community had to agree; Rome was the standard of the authentic apostolic tradition as a whole.
Moreover, Eusebius of Caesarea organized the first version of his ecclesiastical history in accord with the same principle. It was to be a written record of the continuity of apostolic succession, which was concentrated in the three Petrine sees Rome, Antioch and Alexandria-among which Rome, as the site of Peter's martyrdom, was in turn preeminent and truly normative. [2]
This leads us to a very fundamental observation. [3] The Roman primacy, or, rather, the acknowledgement of Rome as the criterion of the right apostolic faith, is older than the canon of the New Testament, than "Scripture".
We must be on our guard here against an almost inevitable illusion. "Scripture" is more recent than "the scriptures" of which it is composed. It was still a long time before the existence of the individual writings resulted in the "New Testament" as Scripture, as the Bible. The assembling of the writings into a single Scripture is more properly speaking the work of tradition, a work that began in the second century but came to a kind of conclusion only in the fourth or fifth century. Harnack, a witness who cannot be suspected of pro-Roman bias, has remarked in this regard that it was only at the end of the second century, in Rome, that a canon of the "books of the New Testament" won recognition by the criterion of apostolicity-catholicity, a criterion to which the other Churches also gradually subscribed "for the sake of its intrinsic value and on the strength of the authority of the Roman Church".
We can therefore say that Scripture became Scripture through the tradition, which precisely in this process included the potentior principalitas–the preeminent original authority–of the Roman see as a constitutive element.
Two points emerge clearly from what has just been First, the principle of tradition in its sacramental form-apostolic succession—played a constitutive role in the existence and continuance of the Church. Without this principle, it is impossible to conceive of a New Testament at all, so that we are caught in a contradiction when we affirm the one while wanting to deny the other. Furthermore, we have seen that in Rome the traditional series of bishops was from the very beginning recorded as a line of successors.
We can add that Rome and Antioch were conscious of succeeding to the mission of Peter and that early on Alexandria was admitted into the circle of Petrine sees as the city where Peter's disciple Mark had been active. Having said all that, the site of Peter's martyrdom nonetheless appears clearly as the chief bearer of his supreme authority and plays a preeminent role in the formation of tradition which is constitutive of the Church-and thus in the genesis of the New Testament as Bible; Rome is one of the indispensable internal and external- conditions of its possibility. It would be exciting to trace the influence on this process of the idea that the mission of Jerusalem had passed over to Rome, which explains why at first Jerusalem was not only not a "patriarchal see" but not even a metropolis: Jerusalem was now located in Rome, and since Peter's departure from that city, its primacy had been transferred to the capital of the pagan world. [4]
But to consider this in detail would lead us too far afield for the moment. The essential point, in my opinion, has already become plain: the martyrdom of Peter in Rome fixes the place where his function continues. The awareness of this fact can be detected as early as the first century in the Letter of Clement, even though it developed but slowly in all its particulars.
Concluding reflections
We shall break off at this point, for the chief goal of our considerations has been attained. We have seen that the New Testament as a whole strikingly demonstrates the primacy of Peter; we have seen that the formative development of tradition and of the Church supposed the continuation of Peter's authority in Rome as an intrinsic condition. The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.
But the New Testament shows us more than the formal aspect of a structure; it also reveals to us the inward nature of this structure. It does not merely furnish proof texts, it is a permanent criterion and task. It depicts the tension between skandalon and rock; in the very disproportion between man's capacity and God's sovereign disposition, it reveals God to be the one who truly acts and is present.
If in the course of history the attribution of such authority to men could repeatedly engender the not entirely unfounded suspicion of human arrogation of power, not only the promise of the New Testament but also the trajectory of that history itself prove the opposite. The men in question are so glaringly, so blatantly unequal to this function that the very empowerment of man to be the rock makes evident how little it is they who sustain the Church but God alone who does so, who does so more in spite of men than through them.
The mystery of the Cross is perhaps nowhere so palpably present as in the primacy as a reality of Church history. That its center is forgiveness is both its intrinsic condition and the sign of the distinctive character of God's power. Every single biblical logion about the primacy thus remains from generation to generation a signpost and a norm, to which we must ceaselessly resubmit ourselves. When the Church adheres to these words in faith, she is not being triumphalistic but humbly recognizing in wonder and thanksgiving the victory of God over and through human weakness. Whoever deprives these words of their force for fear of triumphalism or of human usurpation of authority does not proclaim that God is greater but diminishes him, since God demonstrates the power of his love, and thus remains faithful to the law of the history of salvation, precisely in the paradox of human impotence.
For with the same realism with which we declare today the sins of the popes and their disproportion to the magnitude of their commission, we must also acknowledge that Peter has repeatedly stood as the rock against ideologies, against the dissolution of the word into the plausibilities of a given time, against subjection to the powers of this world.
When we see this in the facts of history, we are not celebrating men but praising the Lord, who does not abandon the Church and who desired to manifest that he is the rock through Peter, the little stumbling stone: "flesh and blood" do not save, but the Lord saves through those who are of flesh and blood. To deny this truth is not a plus of faith, not a plus of humility, but is to shrink from the humility that recognizes God as he is. Therefore the Petrine promise and its historical embodiment in Rome remain at the deepest level an ever-renewed motive for joy: the powers of hell will not prevail against it . . .
Endnotes:
[1] Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2d ed. (198 1), 147- 51; cf. Gnilka, 56.
[2] For an exhaustive account of this point, see V. Twomey, Apostolikos Thronos (Münster, 1982).
[3] It is my hope that in the not-too-distant future I will have the opportunity to develop and substantiate in greater detail the view of the succession that I attempt to indicate in an extremely condensed form in what follows. I owe important suggestions to several works by 0. Karrer, especially: Um die Einheit der Christen. Die Petrusfrage (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1953); "Apostolische Nachfolge und Primat", in: Feiner, Trütsch and Böckle, Fragen in der Theologie heute (Freiburg im.Breisgau, 1957), 175-206; "Das Petrusamt in der Frühkirche", in Festgabe J. Lortz (Baden-Baden, 1958), 507-25; "Die biblische und altkirchliche Grundlage des Papsttums", in: Lebendiges Zeugnis (1958), 3-24. Also of importance are some of the papers in the festschrift for 0. Karrer: Begegnung der Christen, ed. by Roesle-Cullmann (Frankfurt am Mainz, 1959); in particular, K. Hofstetter, "Das Petrusamt in der Kirche des I. und 2. Jahrhunderts", 361-72.
[4] Cf. Hofstetter.
I've elaborated quite a lot on my position and perspective.
I'm disinclined to do it on demand per other people's criteria and expectations. I do it according to my sensibilities. Many demands for "clarification" are merely fishing expeditions for things to fight over further. I hate that.
I will indulge the request somewhat.
1. In addition to a Heavenly warm, Holy Spirit spirit, atmostphere, feeling in a room . . . suddenly leaving and a cold, freezing, dark, black feeling sort of spirit, atmosphere descending . . .
There can be:
2. An anointed speaker, worship leader may step into the flesh and begin doing his own thing--and Holy Spirit's spirit, atmostphere, anointing for healing, delivering etc, will suddenly "LIFT" AS IN "LIFT OFF." No more healings will occur. No more deliverances will occur. The music will suddenly ring flat or hollow (not talking about pitch). It will suddenly be obvious to many that the folks leading things are suddenly now going through the motions but God is not in it.
3. Very wise and Scriptural words like apples of gold in bowls of silver will stop and harsh, sawdust words will spew forth--chaff vs Heavenly manna.
I could go on but that will have to do for now. I shall see how such examples are received as an indication of truly seeking to understand vs fish for something to rail against.
BTW, WHEN I'VE GONE TO GREAT LENGTHS TO BE EXTREMELY EGALITARIAN--AS GOD IS--ABOUT HIS ANOINTING TO ALL WILLING TO WALK CLOSE TO HIM--I'VE EMPHASIZED THAT OVER AND OVER--TO THEN CHEEKILY INSIST THAT I'M TALKING ABOUT A SECRET, CLOSED, BELIEVE ONLY AS I DO CLUB . . . I CONSIDER THAT INSULTING. Not a big deal. Has no eternal consequence. But . . . for the record, that should be noted.
No sweat. I forgive you and love you as you are.
I'm not sure what the "it" is in your sentence, but I'm guessing that you are referring to your circular reasoning in #877. So, you seem to be saying that circular reasoning is not foolish to those with the Spirit.
Romans 10:6 sufficiently addresses how to respond to the question of who has the Spirit.
I have read Romans 10:6, but I do not see how it answer the question: "Who has the Spirit?"
-A8
The short answer to your question is no.
I am not aware of Catholics flocking to Baptist, Lutheran, Calvinist or any other non-Catholic threads and telling the participants that they are wrong simply because of their denomination. If this does happen, then I think it is disgraceful.
Most Protestants with whom I am familiar express none of the anti-Catholic rhetoric that I have seen in this thread. Perhaps they believe it, but they do not openly state it. To say "we're all so excited about Jesus we just want to tell you about it, AND OH BY THE WAY EVERYTHING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES IS WRONG," is an anti-Catholic insult.
To say "we're all so excited about Jesus we just want to tell you about it, AND OH BY THE WAY EVERYTHING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES IS WRONG," is an anti-Catholic insult.
= = =
But far too often, merely the mirror image of what we have to put up with coming our direction.
And I believe that it would be equally improper for me to go onto a thread based on an article by someone like Charles Spurgeon and say "everything that Calvinists believe is wrong."
Obviously, I believe that there are fundamental flaws in Protestant beliefs, just as they feel the same way about Catholicism. But do I think that all of their beliefs are wrong? NO.
There are several Chick tracts attacking the Catholic Church. You can find them all on his website. I don't think the RM would appreciate direct links posted, so you'll have to find them yourself. Believe me, I've read several and they are vile.
I am well aware of how vile they are. However, it is interesting to note that you will never see anything written by a Catholic saying that a prominent Protestant is the antichrist or that all Methodists are burning in Hell.
In their view, there was no way to adjudicate between me and them. I either got the burning or I did not. Every sect in the world could use the same test, and there would be people who seemed to get the 'burning' for each and every sect. You seem to be saying the same thing as the Mormons with respect to how to determine whether someone has the anointing. The test is entirely subjective (except for your test regarding healings, but you know of course that even demons can perform signs and wonders, so that doesn't tell us anything).
When two persons or two groups pray and still disagree, then what? Disunity. That was my original point. When the tests are entirely subjective, disunity is the necessary implication. But for the first 1500 years of Church history, the test was apostolicity; who had been ordained in succession from the Apostles. That is why the Apostle John says in 1 John 4:6 "He who knows God listens to us [i.e. the Apostles and by implication those bishops in Apostolic succession]; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
-A8
I'm really sorry that you were offended by anything I've said. I was wrong to assume, and I believe that quix was giving an analogy, not intending to insult you.
..or explain how it is that he determines who has the anointing. That is why it seems to me that he is part of some "secret club", because he won't reveal who are its members, and how one gets to be in the club, or how one determines who is "in" the club.
It's hard to take you seriously when you talk about secret clubs and membership. Being a spirit-filled, SURRENDERED Christion is not a club. It's not how you're bred, or what church you attend, or who your preacher is. IT's between you and the Lord. Many people are annointed at many different times. Nobody has a "I'm the annointed one" membership card.
Maybe instead of bantering back and forth with quix for your answer, which you won't find here; you can earnestly seek God about this. Only He can show you the truth about His annointing. (And please don't come back with "How do you know I don't already earnestly seek God about this?" as the line of your questions have gone.)
(I'm going to presume, again, that you really don't understand "the annointing" because of the way you've questioned and constantly put the words in parentheses, like it's something we made up .. forgive me if I'm wrong. But just in case..) Try praying something like: Father God, I'm so incredibly curious about this annointing that quix talks about. Father, forgive me if I've in any way offended You in reference to Your mighty gifts and awesome powers. It's about You, Father, not me. Help me to know You in a supernatural way. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Show me those areas in my life that I need to surrender more of to You. Father, I surrender all doubts, preconceived notions, and any thoughts that aren't in obedience with what You desire to work out in my life for YOUR glory. Father, I want Your Best for me, whatever that means, however that looks. Like that father whose son was healed (Mark 9), I say to you, "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief." I just bless You and praise You with my whole being. Thank you for your Son, who is the bridge between You and I. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, who woos us, leads, and guides us. I just love you, Lord. In Jesus' Holy precious name. Amen.
Adaireton8, with all seriousness, if you are truly interested in the supernatural annointing of our Lord, go to HIM, with it. Use your own words, but be HONEST with Him. He loves You and will honor your GENUINE, no strings attached, longing to know him in a more supernatural way.
I'll be praying with you that you find your answers!
This is NOT a closed thread. Closed threads are devotionals, prayer threads and threads designated as a caucus for a particular confession.
On closed threads, challenges to the host confession are strictly not allowed. The assembly will not be disturbed.
This is an open thread. Challenges are allowed here, just like in a public square. Posters who take such challenges personally, should stay away from open threads and instead go to the closed threads - otherwise, every open thread he frequents is at risk of becoming a flame war.
Even atheists mount their challenges on open threads and surely seeing God referred to as a "pink unicorn" would cause an even greater offense (or should, but in fact rarely does, which indicates a deeper problem here.)
On open threads, the poster must "suffer the adverse testimony" and mount a rational argument to debunk misunderstandings, errors, false doctrine, etc.
I was unaware of Catholics swarming non-Catholic threads to the extent that Catholic threads are swarmed.
Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." -- 1 Corinthians 15:10-11"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
Men are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And faith comes by hearing the world of God.
How a poster behaves often carries more weight than what he actually says.
-A8
Reread Romans 10 after returning to Him in faith and prayer so that He may guide your soul, spirit, and heart.
The 'anointing' or 'unction' is a synonym for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Whenever a is called by the Father and responds with faith in Christ alone, the Holy Spirit immediately is free to regenerate the unbeliever's spirit as he is now a believer. Once regenerated, the believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit during this Church Age.
This doesn't occur during the Millenial Reign of Christ. It is a unique gift of the Church Age which places us all into his immediate royal family.
The Holy Spirit provides a temple in our body for the indwelling of the Father and of the Son. These are all outstanding motivations for attainment of spiritual objectives.
The passage in Romans provides enormous opportunity for the Holy Spirit to make these things understood to our spirit, but again only through faith in Christ. As soon as we step away from faith in Him, our soul is no longer filled with the Holy SPirit, rather we become carnal and lapse into our previous methods of thinking which were developed only in the soul and body, a scarred system of thinking void of a spirit filled life.
John 14:26 reiterates how the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us the faith (doctrine) and brings the sound faith back to our memories.
An interesting observation about faith through Christ is that the indwelling of Spirit, Son and Father are all possible while we remain in faith through Him, whereas once we stray, He still indwells us as the Holy Spirit, positionally sanctifying us for salvation, but our sin grieves the Spirit and turns us to carnality rather than a Living God in a spirit filled life. If we continue to dwell in carnality, our sins will naturally turn to not only grieving the Holy Spirit, but in further degeneration of our thinking we will be tempted to even attack Him and quench the Holy SPirit. In extreme cases after divine discipline is repeatedly ignored are rebelled by the sinner, the degenerate believer might no longer serve a useful function in His plan and be called home.
Romans 10 helps to re-emphasis that our keeping in step with His filling is promoted not by critical thinking such as that of an adversarial accuser, but rather a spirit filled thinking placing all faith in Him through faith in Christ.
There are different gifts from the Holy Spirit for different believers. The gift of pastor-teacher is well described in Scripture. Not all pastors may have been gifted for all particular believers.
WRT Roman Catholicism, I rejoice at the many rigorous studies in faith which the RCC has fostered and recorded. There are many sound believers within the body and ecclesiastical offices of the RCC and many extend helps to believers in other denominations and environments.
Insofar as discerning the Spirit, it probably better to discern the filling of the Spirit rather than the indwelling, they are not the same. The filling of the Spirit is discerned again by the Spirit, not by us alone, as who knows the hearts of man other than the one who constantly searches our hearts.
We might be known by our fruits, which are evidence of things not seen, and they might reflect when some are filled and some not filled, but even that is very risky business, as the Lord may use many mysterious ways to fulfill His purpose after His own counsel.
GB
John 7:37-38 has a solution for that acid reflux.
It's all about being secure in your beliefs.
I know what I believe, why I believe it and that it is true. I don't have to tear anyone else down in order to feel better. I am at peace, home at Christ's Church.
I find even those who don't recognize/care that they are not in full communion with Rome, but still claim to be Catholic,attack the Church with the same chick-like vitriol. To me that's as strong an indication as any that they are not resting easy in the Truth.
To truly know Christ and His Church is to know a peace that only He can bring.
I'm not sure why you think it is hard to take me seriously when I talk about a "secret club". I'm not claiming that there really is a secret club. It is just that Pentecostal/charismatic types tend to make everything subjective, including the determination of who is or is not anointed. And as the "computer chip" comment reveals, those who ask how one determines who is anointed are treated as unenlightened uninitiated ones, those who have not yet received the 'gnosis'. The notion implied is, "If you have to ask, you obviously don't have it." That's what makes it seem like a secret club.
One problem with this subjective [gnostic] philosophy is that it fuels religious relativism and pluralism. It eliminates the possibility of Church unity, for it removes ecclesial hiearchy, gives each person the authority to do "what is right in his own eyes", and is in that way part of what foments the proliferation of Christian sects, contrary to Christ's prayer for unity in John 17 and Paul's comments in 1 Cor 1:10-13 and Eph 4:3-5.
-A8
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