Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
'The Nativity Story' Movie Problematic for Catholics, "Unsuitable" for Young Children
By John-Henry Westen
NEW YORK, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A review of New Line Cinema's The Nativity story by Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger of the Franciscans of the Immaculate in the United States, points out that the film, which opened December 1, misinterprets scripture from a Catholic perspective.
While Fr. Geiger admits that he found the film is "in general, to be a pious and reverential presentation of the Christmas mystery." He adds however, that "not only does the movie get the Virgin Birth wrong, it thoroughly Protestantizes its portrayal of Our Lady."
In Isaiah 7:14 the Bible predicts the coming of the Messiah saying: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." Fr. Geiger, in an video blog post, explains that the Catholic Church has taught for over 2000 years that the referenced Scripture showed that Mary would not only conceive the child miraculously, but would give birth to the child miraculously - keeping her physical virginity intact during the birth.
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Fr. Geiger contrasts The Nativity Story with The Passion of the Christ, noting that with the latter, Catholics and Protestants could agree to support it. He suggests, however, that the latter is "a virtual coup against Catholic Mariology".
The characterization of Mary further debases her as Fr. Geiger relates in his review. "Mary in The Nativity lacks depth and stature, and becomes the subject of a treatment on teenage psychology."
Beyond the non-miraculous birth, the biggest let-down for Catholics comes from Director Catherine Hardwicke's own words. Hardwicke explains her rationale in an interview: "We wanted her [Mary] to feel accessible to a young teenager, so she wouldn't seem so far away from their life that it had no meaning for them. I wanted them to see Mary as a girl, as a teenager at first, not perfectly pious from the very first moment. So you see Mary going through stuff with her parents where they say, 'You're going to marry this guy, and these are the rules you have to follow.' Her father is telling her that she's not to have sex with Joseph for a year-and Joseph is standing right there."
Comments Fr. Geiger, "it is rather disconcerting to see Our Blessed Mother portrayed with 'attitude;' asserting herself in a rather anachronistic rebellion against an arranged marriage, choosing her words carefully with her parents, and posing meaningful silences toward those who do not understand her."
Fr. Geiger adds that the film also contains "an overly graphic scene of St. Elizabeth giving birth," which is "just not suitable, in my opinion, for young children to view."
Despite its flaws Fr. Geiger, after viewing the film, also has some good things to say about it. "Today, one must commend any sincere attempt to put Christ back into Christmas, and this film is certainly one of them," he says. "The Nativity Story in no way compares to the masterpiece which is The Passion of the Christ, but it is at least sincere, untainted by cynicism, and a worthy effort by Hollywood to end the prejudice against Christianity in the public square."
And, in addition to a good portrait of St. Joseph, the film offers "at least one cinematic and spiritual triumph" in portraying the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. "Although the Magnificat is relegated to a kind of epilogue at the movie's end, the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is otherwise faithful to the scriptures and quite poignant. In a separate scene, the two women experience the concurrent movement of their children in utero and share deeply in each other's joy. I can't think of another piece of celluloid that illustrates the dignity of the unborn child better than this."
See Fr. Geiger's full review here:
http://airmaria.com/
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" -- Isaiah 5:20
And thank you for providing the link to Calvin's writings. The more they are read, the more the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed in truth and strength.
I’m no theologian, but Mr. Calvin’s use of Plato’s ‘Republic’ as a basis on which to condemn the Church as non-scriptural is pure genius.
Who knew Plato was Scripture!
Let's see what Calvin actually said about Plato...
15. Plato's remarks on similar pretense and delusion There is a most elegant passage in the second book of Plato's Republic. Speaking of ancient expiations, and deriding the foolish confidence of wicked and iniquitous men, who thought that by them, as a kind of veils, they concealed their crimes from the gods; and, as if they had made a paction with the gods, indulged themselves more securely, he seems accurately to describe the use of the expiation of the mass, as it exists in the world in the present day. All know that it is unlawful to defraud and circumvent another. To do injustice to widows, to pillage pupils, to molest the poor, to seize the goods of others by wicked arts, to get possession of any mans succession by fraud and perjury, to oppress by violence and tyrannical terror, all admit to be impious. How then do so many, as if assured of impunity, dare to do all those things? Undoubtedly, if we duly consider, we will find that the only thing which gives them so much courage is, that by the sacrifice of the mass as a price paid, they trust that they will satisfy God, or at least will easily find a means of transacting with him. Plato next proceeds to deride the gross stupidity of those who think by such expiations to redeem the punishments which they must otherwise suffer after death. And what is meant by anniversaries and the greater part of masses in the present day, but just that those who through life have been the most cruel tyrants, or most rapacious plunderers or adepts in all kinds of wickedness, may, as if redeemed at this price, escape the fire of purgatory?THEIR VANITY PROVED EVEN BY PLATO
And here's what looks to be a great article by Cornelius Van Til which I haven't yet read but intend to get to later today...
According to a couple of things I've read, there really wasn't this monolithic agreement on the real presence in the early church. Hermann Sasse devotes a bit of time disussing this in a book of his essays called The Lonely Way. I would post excerpts, but copyright laws forbid it.
If the following quote is truly attributable to St. Augustine, then it would seem he probably would be more Calvinian in his understanding of the Eucharist that Aquinian:
"Why prepare teeth and gums? Believe and you have already eaten."
Certainly, the early church took the celebration of the Eucharist very seriously, and there must have been some definite understanding that Christians viewed it as partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, or they wouldn't have been accused of cannibalism. I don't think the usual and customary Scripture of John 6 is an effective exposition of the real presence because it does tie in with the thought attributed to Augustine. It is, when all is said and done about trusting the word of The Word, and that's what those that departed from him in John 6 were not capable of doing.
One of the best verses that illuminate and presage Jesus' words in John 6 can be found in 1 Samuel:21, with use of the term the Bread of the Presence. But before I go on, I want to say how disgraceful I think it is that the Eucharist became at the hands of men, a bludgeon. How fitting for a race decended from blessed Adam (sin and all) who just couldn't stand the fact that he wasn't God.
I'm going to post the entire piece on Calvinian Presence because it's worth the read, and I don't think it overly long-winded.
The gentleman who wrote it is Joel Garver, a Calvinist (I think anyway, based on his blog) and who appears to be a loving kind of guy. His site name is Sacra Doctrina. He holds the position of Assistant professor of Philosophy at La Salle University. And while you may disagree with him, he's no dilettante. Anyway, here's his piece:
Calvinian real presence? The topic of the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist has surfaced in several recent discussions, particularly whether one could speak of a Calvinian understanding of that presence. After all, it is assumed, the historic catholic teaching of the church is that of the Real Presence and so a Calvinian doctrine of the Real Presence might have important ecumenical implications.
It seems to me that this topic needs some careful thought, along with a significant degree of historical and philosophical awareness. Unfortunately, I lack much of the requisite expertise to address the topic adequately. Still, I have a few initial (and likely controversial) thoughts on the topic.
I think the first thing to note is terminological. Whatever the shape of Patristic and earlier medieval teaching, nobody believed in the "Real Presence" prior to the late middle ages (note the quotation marks). The terminology of "Real Presence" simply was not in use and when it did come into use--particularly the use of the term "real"--it did so in connection with various shifts in ecclesiology and ontology so that what came to be termed "Real Presence" was not in fact identical with the Patristic and earlier medieval understandings of the eucharist, even if there were points of continuity.
Thus, when Calvin avoids using the terminology of "Real Presence" he does so as a humanist theologian, attempting to retrieve what he understands to be more authentic ways of expressing catholic belief regarding the eucharist, with a greater focus on "true partaking" of Christ's flesh and blood in the contextof the eucharistic action, though inextricably tied up with partaking of the elements themselves. In this project Augustine and the Eastern Fathers are Calvin's primary sources of reflection.
A number of studies of Calvin's eucharistic doctrine have been published over the years, attempting to explicate his views. In particular J.W. Nevin's The Mystical Presence, B.A. Gerrish's Grace and Gratitude, and Keith Mathison's Given for You come to mind, each providing an important perspective on Calvin's doctrine. On the specific issue of Calvin's use of terminology and rejection of the language of "Real Presence," however, one should consult Joseph N. Tylenda, "Calvin and Christ's Presence in the Supper--True or Real" in Scottish Journal of Theology 27 (1974) 65-75. Tylenda examines all the revelant texts where Calvin uses the term "real" in relation to the partaking of Christ's body in the Supper and demonstrates that Calvin prefered the older terminology of "true" over the more recent introduction of "real" and the ontological baggage that he perceived as coming with it (though "true" has its own history of problems in connection with eucharist as de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum demonstrates).
Moreover, with regard to the notion of the "real" and the shifts in ontology that are behind it, there are a number important texts that need to be taken into account, several from within the perspective of Radical Orthodoxy.
First among these is Catherine Pickstock's After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Blackwell 1997), where she sets out how shifts in late medieval ontology from Scotus onward led to a "spatialization" of knowledge and reality (what she terms a "mathesis"). Her work on this builds in important ways upon Michel de Certeau's The Mystic Fable. The idea here is that the "real" requires placement upon a manipulable grid of absolute presence.
A second text is John Milbank and C. Pickstock's Truth in Aquinas (Routledge 2001), particularly the fourth and last chapter, "Truth and Language," which treats eucharistic doctrine and issues of presence and absence in the context of both patristic/medieval theology and postmodern discussions (e.g., Derrida, though there are problems with their account ofDerrida, I think). They do a good job of suggesting the ways in which earlier eucharistic theology was grounded in an ecclesial and relational context of human action. This discussion is well-supplemented by Graham Ward's Cities of God (Routledge 2000), where he interacts with Calvin's view in connection with questions of ontology and, especially, the ascension of Christ, which Calvin so emphasizes, though Ward's attempt to build a theology of Christ's ascension is not without problems.
Finally, behind these various discussions still stands Henri de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum (Aubier 1944), though it's still only available in French (Ward has an English translation coming out soon, hopefully). De Lubac traces the reversals and shifts in the relationship and meaning of the terms "true body" and "mystical body" in medieval theology, particular their reversal as the term "true body" migrates from referring to the gathered ecclesial Body of Christ to the presence of Christ in the eucharist.
The upshot of these writings is that for earlier medieval and Patristic theology, notions such as" substance" and "presence" and "body of Christ" were embedded within an ontology that granted them a certain kind of dynamism and relationality, connected with actions and events (so that "eucharist" was more a liturgical event than a fetishizable thing), and irreduceably attached to signs, without giving into spatialized notions of absolute presence and absence. In the late medieval period, however, and into the early modern, there were shifts in ontology that moved in the direction of defining "real" and "substance" in terms of a spatialized presence, definitively localized, thought of in terms of absolute arrival, more static, and in a different, more problematic relationship with signs.
While these shifts occurred in the west, it is arguable that the Christian East maintained something much closer to the overall shape of various Patristic approaches. Some Eastern Orthodox manuals and theologians, of course, in a polemical response to their western counterparts, did fall into some western patterns (e.g., identifying the epiclesis as the moment of Christ's absolute arrival, in response tothe high medieval western identification of specific words of the institution narrative as properly consecratory). Nevertheless, a number of Eastern theologians (e.g., Alexander Schmemman in recent years) still maintained and retrieved a eucharistic doctrine that has more in common with the Fathers than with the problematics of the medieval west.
Returning to the notion of the "Real Presence," one could suggest, of course, that it may be the case that in the past century or so, the terminology of "real" has shifted so as not to be quite so tied up withthese kinds of later medieval and early modern notions and, instead, meaning something more like "authentic"or "true" rather than "false" or "illusory." Calvin himself allowed that if by "real" one meant "true" (reali pro vero) in opposition to fallacious or imaginary (fallaci vel imaginario), then that language was permissible (see his first reply to Westphal). On this basis, we might speak of a Calvinian doctrine ofthe "Real Presence" and perhaps there are good ecumenical reasons for doing so in terms of western theology. But I hardly think the terminology of "Real Presence," given its historical contingency and late origins, is necessary for confessing a common catholic faith.
Calvin himself, however, isn't entirely without problems. Personally, my reading of Calvin is that he was attempting to retrieve a more Patristic understanding of the eucharistic partaking of Christ's flesh and blood, trying to do an end run around his Roman Catholic and Lutheran interlocutors. And I think that, to a large degree, Calvin was successful.
On the other hand, Calvin is a mixed bag. He recognizes the problems of the notion of "Real Presence" that had arisen in his day, but he himself, it seems to me, falls prey to just the kinds of problems that he is objecting to in his opponents. Thus, we find Calvin continually speaking of the ascended Christ, in his humanity, as "far off" or "at great distance from us in space" (and so on) as if the ascension were some kind of spiritual mode of space travel. While at his more reflective moments, Calvin seems to recognize that such language is inadequate, it is still pervasive in the way in which he frames his eucharistic doctrine and, in many regards, strikes me as the equal and opposite error from that which he was opposing (i.e., a notion of Real Presence that seemed to definitively and spatially localize Christ's body as enclosed within the eucharistic elements).
It is just this kind of spatialization within Calvin to which Graham Ward objects in his Cities of God, though, it seems to me, that Ward's own theorization of the ascension is at least as problematic as Calvin's (not to mention what seems to me an implicit gnosticism). To my mind, a helpful correction to bothWard and Calvin is Douglas Farrow's Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of Ascension (Eerdmans 1999), which looks at the ascension along more eschatological-temporal dimensions and rethinks how we might conceive of the "heaven" to which Christ has ascended in relation to us.
In any case, there's considerable work to be done on this topic by those from within the Reformed tradition as a matter of renewing Calvin's own eucharistic doctrine, placing it in its proper historical context, developing it today, and bringing it into conversation with the wider faith of the church catholic. What I've done here is the merest gesture towards the issues at stake and resources necessary for such a Calvinistic renewal.
I read the entire chapter, and many of the other writings of John Calvin that you referenced, thank you. His denouciation of the Mass,
“What remains but for the blind to see, the deaf to hear, children even to perceive this abomination of the mass, which, held forth in a golden cup, has so intoxicated all the kings and nations of the earth, from the highest to the lowest; so struck them with stupor and giddiness, that, duller than the lower animals, they have placed the vessel of their salvation in this fatal vortex. Certainly Satan never employed a more powerful engine to assail and storm the kingdom of Christ. This is the Helen for whom the enemies of the truth in the present day fight with so much rage, fury, and atrocity; and truly the Helen with whom they commit spiritual whoredom, the most execrable of all. I am not here laying my little finger on those gross abuses by which they might pretend that the purity of their sacred mass is profaned; on the base traffic which they ply; the sordid gain which they make; the rapacity with which they satiate their avarice. I only indicate, and that in few and simple terms, how very sacred the sanctity of the mass is, how well it has for several ages deserved to be admired and held in veneration! It were a greater work to illustrate these great mysteries as they deserve, and I am unwilling to meddle with their obscene impurities, which are daily before the eyes and faces of all, that it may be understood that the mass, taken in the most choice form in which it can be exhibited, without any appendages, teems from head to foot with all kinds of impiety, blasphemy, idolatry, and sacrilege.”
In which I have partaken and witnessed the Holy Spirit a thousand times......
Makes my faith in the Church even stronger.
Good day. I’m off to my son’s ball-game.
RD
Dear kosta, one can argue that anything that is expressible in human language is a human construct or "model." No physicist has ever “seen” an atom, let alone a sub-atomic particle. Yet there is evidence that there are such things; and so if we need to talk about them, we have to try to "model" them in such a way that they can be captured in language. Otherwise, communication about them cannot take place, and knowledge does not increase.
We do the best we can, as finite, contingent creatures to make our knowledge of the world comport as much as possible with actual reality; but our observational perspective is necessarily constrained by our relative position in space and time. And so we humans see "as if through a glass, darkly"....
My point about Aristotelian formal logic is that the Third Law is the tool of choice if you are dealing with an either/or situation: Is something true or false? Is this a case of “Yes” or “No?” Or 0/1? This is a style of thinking that is eminently suitable in digital applications: Computers, after all, are structured to make “either/or” decisions. And so to the extent that we use computers to analyze reality, this type of logic becomes more and more reinforced as the tool of choice for understanding reality.
Actually it was Einstein who said, “If two descriptions are mutually exclusive, at least one of them must be wrong.” But not all problems are reducible to “either/or, true/false, Yes/No” criteria. Many problems we encounter actually involve questions of “both.” To apply the Law of the Excluded Middle in such cases forces a reduction of reality to what fits the model, which obscures (or obviates) an important sector of the reality we are trying to understand.
For instance, it makes no sense (to me at least) to bring the Third Law to bear on what constitutes human nature. Human beings have been understood since classical times as constituted by (1) body and (2) soul, or spirit (or psyche or nous -- different terms referring to the "spiritual" aspect). That is, they are constituted by a complementarity: This is not an “either/or situation”; this is a case of both. Just as with the complementarity of particles and waves in quantum theory. You can study the body part, and you can study the soul part. But you can’t eliminate one of them and get a “complete description” of the human being.
Which is why to regard the human being as simply a physical entity gives an erroneous picture which, if taken as the basic presupposition regarding man (as has been done as you know, for instance, by Darwin and Marx, et al.) will lead to a reduction of man that gives a false picture of what he is, in his essential nature. You get that "wrong," and anything you build based on the false picture will also be "wrong" (e.g., the "dictatorship of the proletariat").
It seems to me that any complementarity (or set of apparently mutually-exclusive yet paired components if I might use that word here) is a given in the nature of things that depends on a higher principle for its reconciliation, which provides the essential context that places them into their mutual, synergistic, dynamic relations. The Third Law wrongly applied obscures the contextual reality in which events happen.
So there is logic, and then there is logic: But God is not bound by logic; indeed, God’s Truth (from our very human point of view) may be entirely illogical; but it is God’s Truth; and therefore, it is THE truth whether it is “logical” or not.
In short, God is not subject to logic. Logic is a human creation.
I think you recognize this, for you said: “…we cannot show how big is love.”
Exactly: Logic is no help there.
Well, just my two cents FWIW.... Thank you kindly for writing!
You have chosen John Calvin over ALL the Saints and ALL the Early Church Fathers over 2000 years of History.
Every SINGLE Saint and Early Single Church Father(Not a Single exception)believed in the Real Presence,ALL of them.
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/a5.html
You trust the Church Fathers enough to say they were guided by the Holy Spirit to give you Bible Canon but you trust John Calvin and John Knox to give you the correct interpretations of the Eucharist
So is it correct for me to say that you believe that the Saints and the Early Fathers were guided by an evil spirit in how they interpreted the Eucharist?ALL of them!
This is exactly what your saying.
you said...
“”Regardless, “early church fathers” are not Scripture, and Scripture is what determines our (and Calvin’s) understanding of the Lord’s Supper””
So lets look at Scripture,it is very clear that Jesus was NOT speaking metaphorically
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that a man may eat and not die. I AM THE LIVING BREAD which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world. Then the Jews started arguing with one another. Did they understand Him correctly? Was He actually telling them He would give His own flesh for food? “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” they asked. Instead of reassuring them that he did not mean to be taken literally, Christ went on:
“I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is REAL food and my blood is REAL drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. This is the bread that came down from heaven; not like the bread that your ancestors ate; they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:48-58).
The evangelist explains that Christ taught this doctrine in the synagogue, but that hearing it “many of his followers said, ‘This is intolerable language, How could anyone accept it?’” Jesus was fully aware that His followers were complaining and, in fact, asked them, “does this upset you?” But He took nothing back. Rather He insisted, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” At the same time He explained that such faith is not of man’s making, since “no one could come to me unless the Father allows him.”
Following this animated dialogue, we are prepared for the statement, “After this, many of His disciples left Him and stopped going with Him.” Then, to make absolutely certain there was no mistaking what He was saying, Jesus said to the Twelve, “What about you, do you want to go away too?” To which Simon Peter replied, “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe” (John 6:59-68).
Jesus says “You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” FOUR TIMES,He meant what He said LITERALLY.
The Church’s decisive revelation on the Real Presence is in the words of the consecration, “This is my body; this is my blood,” whose literal meaning has been defended through the ages. They were thus understood by St. Paul when he told the first Christians that those who approached the Eucharist unworthily would be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. There could be no question of a grievous offense against Christ Himself, unless Paul assumed that the true Body and the true Blood of Christ are really present in the Eucharist.
Let take a look at a few of the Early Church Fathers ,some who were DIRECT Disciple of the Apostles.
St. Ignatius became the third bishop of Antioch, succeeding St. Evodius, who was the immediate successor of St. Peter. He heard St. John preach when he was a boy and knew St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna who was a Disiple of Saint John
“I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed.”
-”Letter to the Romans”, paragraph 7, circa 80-110 A.D
St. Irenaeus succeeded St. Pothinus to become the second bishop of Lyons in 177 A.D. Earlier in his life he studied under St. Polycarp. Considered, one of the greatest theologians of the 2nd century, St. Irenaeus is best known for refuting the Gnostic heresies.
[Christ] has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies.”
Source: St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 180 A.D.:
Now lets take a look at What Saint Anthansis says, he was was the first to give us the complete listing of New Testament Books.
“’The great Athanasius in his sermon to the newly baptized says this:’ You shall see the Levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘And again:’ Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine - and thus His Body is confected.”,
-”Sermon to the Newly Baptized” ante 373 A.D.,
Certainly Saint Athanasius MUST have known the Correct Interpretations regarding the Eucharist.
Not according to you and John Calvin and John Knox!
Calvin Knox and others failed to understand typology of the Scriptures
Here are a few ground rules regarding symbolism that must be mastered before anyone makes an attempt for serious Bible study.
1. You have probably heard the quotation by Saint Augustine:
“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old Testament and the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament”.
2. The New Testament is hidden in the Old by a plethora of symbolism called typology.
3. Old Testament types (symbols) and even New Testament symbolism always point to New Testament realities as I will show soon.
4. An Old Testament type never points to a New Testament symbol.
This is such an important point, that I will reword it for emphasis. A symbol of the O.T. never points to a N.T. symbol but always to the reality of what the symbol represents.
5. A symbol of itself has no power to save. All power is reserved for the much greater reality.
6. Here are some other terms, some of which are in Holy Scripture, which are sometimes used as substitutions for symbolism:
shadow, foreshadow, badge, emblem, figure, template, pattern, token, foretoken, prefigurement, prefiguration, gesture, label, picture, hint, sign, blueprint, image. As you can readily see, none are the reality of what they represent.
We are made in the image of GOD (Genesis 1:26-27) but we are certainly not divine as is GOD.
Here are some examples of symbolism versus reality...
*The Sabbath:
Colossians 2:16-17, the Jewish Sabbath is but a shadow of good things to come. This is a foreshadowing of the Christian Sunday worship. How much power does a shadow have compared to what causes it to begin with?
Exodus 31:16-17, the Sabbath is a sign or a token (the word used depends on the Bible) and it is for the children of Israel.
*The Law:
Hebrews 10:1, the Law (the first five books of the Old Testament) is but a shadow of good things to come.
The “good things to come” is the New Covenant of Jesus Christ which has obsoleted the Law, Hebrews 8:13.
*Animal sacrifice:
Hebrews 10:4, the blood of oxen and goats cannot take away sins. Animal sacrifices were symbolic of the New Testament reality of the Blood of Christ which could wash away the sins of the world.
Ephesians 1:7, through the blood of His Son, we are set free from our sins.
*The Holy Eucharist:
The manna in the desert (the O.T. type) fed the body, but it could never feed the soul, John 6:49.
The manna is the symbol for the Holy Eucharist.
The only thing that could feed the soul is the Body and Blood of Christ, the Holy Eucharist (the N.T. reality), John 6:47-58.
The basic rules of typology,
“An Old Testament type never points to a New Testament symbol, but to its reality.”
“A symbol of itself has no power to save anyone. All power to save is reserved for the much greater reality.”
Now why do Protestants and Fundamentalists and other non-Catholics bend and break the rules of typology by taking the whole Bible literally except for chapter six of the Gospel of John for which they say is symbolic? Doesn’t it sound strange to you that all books of the Bible are taken literally by them except for that one chapter in the Gospel of John?
Isn’t it reminiscent of Martin Luther who wanted to remove entire books from the Bible simply because they were opposed to HIS teaching?
The answer to why is simply because none of them have a valid authorized priesthood which is able to perform sacrifice as commanded by Holy Scripture that we must do on a continuous daily basis. So, for them IT IS ONLY A SYMBOL!
However, they have no right to say for the Catholic Holy Eucharist, that it is only a symbolic gesture also.
For those who deny the true presence in the Catholic Holy Eucharist, I must point out two Bible references which fit all of the scoffers perfectly. I have listed each of the two from different Bibles for emphasis:
“But these people, like irrational animals born by nature for capture and destruction, revile things that they do not understand, and in their destruction they will also be destroyed, suffering wrong as payment for wrongdoing.
2Peter 2:12-13
“These false teachers insult what they don’t understand. They are like animals, which are creatures of instinct that are born to be caught and killed. So they will be destroyed like animals and lose what their wrongdoing earned them. These false teachers are stains and blemishes.”
2Peter 2:12-13
“But these people revile what they do not understand and are destroyed by what they know by nature like irrational animals. Woe to them! They followed the way of Cain, abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”
Jude 1:10-11
“Whatever these people don’t understand, they insult. Like animals, which are creatures of instinct, they use whatever they know to destroy themselves. How horrible it will be for them! They have followed the path of Cain. They have rushed into Balaam’s error to make a profit. They have rebelled like Korah and destroyed themselves.”
Jude 1:10-11
Dear Sister, I think it is possible that John Calvin and John Knox may have committed unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit.
This is only my opinion
The Bread of Life Discourse
I began following through on the implications of these discoveries. For instance, I turned to John’s gospel, Chapter 6, and I began studying more closely a very significant event that occurred early in his ministry near Capernaum where I happened to be just a few months ago with my family. A fascinating story there. You all know it, I think. In John 6, Jesus multiplied the loaves and gave the famous Bread of Life discourse. He multiplied the loaves and spoke of himself as being the Bread of Life.
What was the season of the year when that occurred? John 6, verse 4, tells us, “It was at the time of the Passover.” What a coincidence, right? Wrong! Jesus knew at that early Passover what he was to do at a later Passover, so he began to prepare his disciples to understand the full nature and the true meaning of his sacrificial death before it was to occur.
At the end, as the climax of this discourse, he announces to the multitudes, he says, “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. I am the manna; I am the unleavened bread. I am the food for your souls, to lead you out of the spiritual Egypt, to deliver you in the true Passover, and the ultimate exodus — not just from Egypt into Caanan, but out of this world and across the Jordan River of death into the Promised Land of heaven. That’s what my sacrifice will accomplish and that’s what my Body and Blood will empower you to experience.”
“If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever... and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you,’” — I’m simply using a metaphor, a figure of speech? — No, he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you have no life in you.” Now, first he says, “The bread which I give to you is my flesh,” and the Jews are offended because that sounds like cannibalism. It sounds like a forbidden practice according to the laws of Leviticus and so they protest, and what does Jesus say? If Jesus had meant his words to be taken exclusively in a figurative sense, as a teacher, he would have been morally obligated to clarify that point. And it would have been simple to do. He could have simply said, “Gentlemen, I simply mean receive me in faith.”
But no. In fact what he does is intensifies the scandalous nature of his remark. He says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh,” — and the Greek is very vivid, it’s he who “chews” — “my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died. For he who eats this bread will live forever.”
He doesn’t just say it once. He doesn’t just say it twice. Not even three times. Four times altogether, he tells the multitudes, “You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” Now you often hear Bible Christians asking others, “Are you born again?” And they quote from John 3, where Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again — or born from above.” But Jesus doesn’t say, “You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood just once.” He only said “born again” once. Here he says it four times.
Why is it we don’t hear Bible Christians going around and saying, “Have you eaten his flesh and have you consumed his blood?” A better question to ask is, “Why aren’t we going out and sharing with our friends and family that question? Have you received the glorious feast that Christ died to serve? Have you eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the Son of Man, so that he could raise you up, so you can abide in him and he can belong to you?”
Back then, the disciples were really perplexed. Many of his disciples, when they heard it said, “This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?” They don’t say, “Who can understand?” They say, “Who can even stand by and listen to it? It’s so offensive.” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, what? “Do you take offense at this?” — or, “I apologize, I’ll back off?” No. Our Lord does not compromise the truth for crowds. He says what he means and he means what he says. And he said we must eat his flesh and drink his blood because that’s the gift of himself. I’m not surprised to read then, in verse 66, “After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” The real, true, personal presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist was then and is now a mystery of faith. It is an incredible thing for us to believe that Jesus Christ’s real presence is there in the Holy Eucharist. Don’t take it for granted if you believe. Don’t say to yourself, “What’s wrong with them, why can’t they see? It’s so plain and obvious?” No, it’s not.
If you believe that Jesus Christ is truly and really present in the Holy Eucharist, then by all means, before this day is done, you thank God for that grace. Because you believe something which your eyes have not shown you, what your human reason has not demonstrated. You believe because God has spoken and God has empowered you to believe. But in every age, today as back then, there are going to be multitudes who follow Jesus, who see his miracles, who confess him to be their Lord.
Earlier in the chapter the multitudes were going to take Jesus by force and make him King. Here are people proclaiming the Lordship and the Kingship of Jesus who are shocked and horrified and offended at his language when it comes to preparing his disciples for the Eucharist. And what do they do? The people who are announcing his Kingship a few hours ago now turn away. Many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “What have I done, guys? Hire me a public relations firm. I’ve got to beef up my act?” No. He didn’t say, “Hey, go out there. Catch them. Stop them. Bring them back. Tell them I only meant it metaphorically.”
“He said to the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’” Jesus is so committed to the truth which sets us free, to the truth which gives us life, that he would not compromise it when the numbers had dwindled down to twelve. And Simon Peter speaks up on behalf of the twelve, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.”
Notice what Simon Peter does not say. He does not say, “Hey, Jesus, come off it. What you said is plain. It’s obvious. It’s clear. Eucharistic realism — you know; it’s no problem at all. It’s the Real Presence of you in the Eucharist.” No way. Peter says, “To whom shall we go?” In other words, “Jesus to be real frank, we’ve been thinking about finding another Rabbi. Any advice? Any suggestions? To whom shall we go? Here’s our problem, Lord; you have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.”
He doesn’t say, “Oh this lesson of yours, that’s duck soup. We have no problem comprehending it.” Obviously, Peter struggled, too. But sometimes it’s important for faith to reach the point where you don’t have to understand everything. All you have to do is know the One who does understand everything. You cling to Christ, even when you don’t understand his ways in your life. And that’s the faith of Peter — a mustard seed, perhaps. That’s the faith that held them together and that’s the faith that will hold us together as his disciples.
Well said, short sweet..
Logic is a language word used show humans trying to understand logic.. As true as anything ever said is Tom Clancys meme "The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction HAS to make sense".. Because truely reality does not HAVE to make sense.. Reality has to impress no one..
Same with God.. God(the real one) has to impress no one..
A God that does have to impress anyone is probably not God..
Even more reason that faith is a spiritual qualifier..
I see that too.
With faith comes spiritual discernment, in God's good time. Place your trust in the Lord in this.
God doesn't have to impress anyone. He is not lacking in willing natural sons.
Satan, on the other hand, has no sons, certainly not "natural" ones: What "sons" he has are ever the products of seduction, usually effected by means of appeal to the would-be son's narcissism. So he has to try to seduce everybody, if he wants a meaningful number of "converts."
IMHO He goes by the numbers: Satan is a gambler, you see.
My my, my thoughts range strangely tonight!
Yikes!
Thank you for your truly beautiful essay/post, dear 'pipe!
The great and stubborn push for ecumenical sameness tries to fit Calvin into either an Arminian mold, a Romanist mold or even, as we've seen today, a Platonic mold. From my reading, he is devoutly none of these.
The Lord's Supper became a "bludgeon in men's hands" because Rome turned it into something to be bartered, a commodity to dispense at the whim and will of men and magisteriums.
The error of the mass is also due to the fact that it asserts the body and blood of Christ are being sacrificed anew to God every time the mass is performed, which of course is a lie since this contradicts much of Hebrews, John and Romans.
Because the church of Rome needs to have its adherents believe it is the gatekeeper, the distributor of God's grace, it follows that Rome formulated a concept of the Lord's Supper that is outside the grasp of laymen and can only be experienced via the wizardly incantations of its clergy.
Now if it were true, as Scripture says, that Christ's sacrifice was made once for all the sins of the elect, then it would not be necesssary for Rome to insist that Christ's actual body and blood are again being sacrificed for the believer with each performance.
And Rome would be out of business.
Luther was 3/4 correct. It took the next generation of men like Calvin to fully return to the clear and simple Scriptural understanding of the Lord's Supper. Regardless of how men hope to muddy the waters with their own prejudices, it is just not that difficult to understand Calvin. He was not obtuse. From Scripture he recognized that nothing a priest does or says can change bread and wine into body and blood. From Scripture he knew the singular and perfect sacrifice of Christ had already been accomplished, once for all time. From Scripture he knew Christ Himself told us the Lord's Supper was a meal of remembrance among believers who would gather and receive true sustenance from the memory of Christ's one-time sacrifice on Calvary.
To say we need a tangible sign, as if the elements of the Last Supper could actually change materialistically, is to distrust God and commit the same error as the Jews who "required a sign."
The truth is not found in matter. The truth is in the spirit.
Grace is real in the Lord's Supper. Christ is real in the Lord's Supper. And neither of those statements requires alchemy or priviledged invocation. Grace and Christ are spiritually discerned.
The Westminster Confession is a clear and concise description of the Lord's Supper, according to Scripture...
1. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein He was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of His body and blood, called the Lord's Supper, to be observed in His Church, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of Himself in His death; the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in Him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto Him; and, to be a bond and pledge of their communion with Him, and with each other, as members of His mystical body. 2. In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to His Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all, for remission of sins of the quick or dead; but only a commemoration of that one offering up of Himself, by Himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God, for the same: so that the popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ's one, only sacrifice, the only propitiation for all the sins of His elect. 3. The Lord Jesus hath, in this ordinance, appointed His ministers to declare His word of institution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation. 4. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other alone; as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ. 5. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to Him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before. 6. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the substance of Christ's body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions; yea, of gross idolatries. 7. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. 8. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament; yet, they receive not the thing signified thereby; but, by their unworthy coming thereunto, are guilty of the body of the Lord, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with Him, so are they unworthy of the Lord's table; and cannot, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto. "
Of the Lord's Supper.
And your posts are always welcome, AlbionGirl. I learn from every one of them. 8~)
I'm going to read this right after "The Office." 8~)
Are God's "interventions" known to Him before they occur; before we pray for them?
Yes and no. I would imagine that to God there is nothing that can be described as "before." But I would say that an omniscient God knows everything.
If so, then they would be prefigured into His plan for creation before any actual intervention in time
What we do affects us and not God. We cannot affect, derail or sabotage His sovereignty. But we can choose not to follow Him, not because He programmed us, but because He gave us that freedom by His permission and will.
And He will take that freedom into account when He judges us according to our deeds.
His "interventions" aren't contemporaneous with our prayers. They are part of God's plan for creation, every speck ordained by God for His glory
The bible clearly says He adds years to those whose prayers He hears. Sound like His plan was two-progned: if you pray I will add years; if you don't I won't. Make your choice, o man! He offers blessings. What we do with them is up to us, to use them for more blessings or for evil. Either way, it's our choice, by His permission.
Our prayers are not to inform God, but rather to conform us.
Of course not. They are petitions.
If the cup after blessing becomes the blood of Jesus, why does He say He will drink it again with the disciples in the Kingdom? Why does He give them the bread and cup before He dies if it becomes His broken body and shed blood and yet that has not happened? Why does He say do this in remembrance of me rather than you must do it for your salvation? Why does the eating of the bread and drinking the cup in the presence of Jesus have absolutely no spiritual effect on the disciples immediately after, vis, the squabble over authority, Peter’s braggadocio, Judas’ betrayal, and ultimately all of the disciples abandoning and even sleeping in His hour of need? You see, words matter; remembrance is memorial, not present action.
“*The Sabbath:
Colossians 2:16-17, the Jewish Sabbath is but a shadow of good things to come. This is a foreshadowing of the Christian Sunday worship. How much power does a shadow have compared to what causes it to begin with?
Exodus 31:16-17, the Sabbath is a sign or a token (the word used depends on the Bible) and it is for the children of Israel.”
Heb. 4:4-11, says the rest (Sabbath) is yet to come. the Old Testament Sabbath (a sign) pointed to a New Testament sign (Sunday, first day) which pointed to the reality, heaven. So your rules fail here. They also fail in that one of the reasons Judah went into the second exile was because they did not keep their Sabbaths, so Sabbath had a reality of its own in addition to the sign, the same as the Law did.
Augustine adopted Origen’s allegorizing of the scriptures as an hermeneutic tool to aid in removing the place of authority of the church at Jerusalem and to consolidate the power of the Roman Empire and the church.
Excellent, as usual.
Thx.
THX Quix! God bless, and good night!
It's late, but i will answer you (against my better judgment), because otherwise I will be thinking about it and not get much sleep.
No physicist has ever “seen” an atom, let alone a sub-atomic particle. Yet there is evidence that there are such things
Sort of. Our models are an expression of our limited perceptions. Ptolemy's navigational system contains "epicycles" and he would have told you that, based on his scientific work, they exist even though we can't see them.
But they exist (in fact, by necessity) only in his model. As long as his model is assumed to represent reality, the epicycles are real as well.
The epicycles are of course the result of his observational position over a period of time. The data show planets moving in such a way that they slow down, stop, loop and continue. The "reality" of these epicycles are such that they can be"detected" and predicted with utmost precision (repeatability, precision, predictability), which also serves as "proof" that the model is "real."
After all, the system (based on the geocentric model), still "works," so it "must" be real. Ptolemy's work contains scientific method that we use to this day to "prove" various working models as "real."
Your complementary theory, besides being based on human perceptions and logic, only indicates that we cannot grasp the Creation.
We can only think of a wave or a particle, one at a time; saying that energy is (radiant) and bound (matter, particle) at the same time is a paradox for our finite intellect, very likely to lead to insanity.
It really doesn't matter what we grasp, for none of it is of any consequence to the Creation. We are a bunch of primates with souls, wholly incapable of intellectually absorbing what we are faced with, with or without Spirit.
The Spirit doesn't give us facts that we can use to make a "working model." The Spirit tells us that love is not of this world, that we can know God in our hearts but never intellectually. That knowledge is without words or "working models." :)
Thank you. PS A scientific "working model" or theory is like a game of Monopoly: a simplistic, indeed bad, imitation of what the real world, known and discernible only to God, is really like.
That is certainly true of some, but not all, of the Apostles. There are several Biblical figures, whose specific sin we are not told about.
FK: "Remember, during Jesus' ministry the gentile centurion had greater faith than Mary."
It is not shown as greater than Mary's faith. When she is not sure what child Jesus meant by His father's house, all she knows is a child to whom a great promise is attached. The centurion on the other hand sees a man working miracles. To compare the two, you need to look at Cana, where Mary is asking for a miracle even though Jesus had not worked any at that time.
OK, and when we make that comparison we see that the centurion was after Cana. If we presume that Mary was following Jesus around, then she must have seen all the miracles that there were to see already. The centurion couldn't have seen all that Mary saw. Yet, Jesus tells us specifically that the centurion's faith was greater than any He had seen in Israel. That includes Mary.
Mary's unique connection was that the ministry of Christ started with her meek request: "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee; and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him." (Jn 2:11), and it lead to the disciples believing.
I do not take "his disciples believed in him" in the most literal sense, since I know how many of them blew it afterward. It was still less than the belief you or I have today, i.e. not true faith. Therefore, I cannot give Mary credit for kick-starting Jesus' ministry. Jesus was going to begin when it was correct for Jesus to begin according to God's perfect plan, not at the prodding by one of us.
If you recall that she was also left adopting Christ's beloved disciple at the foot of the Cross, you see how His ministry on earth begins and ends with two themes: Mary and the Church.
Actually, I don't recall that at all. :) Mary didn't adopt John, it was the other way around. Let's see it:
John 19:26-27 : 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," 27 and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
John was tasked with caring for Mary, which is fine. The honor here goes to John, not Mary. And once again, there is no shame at all on Mary for this fact.
I don't know how you define "core". I do think that the desire to minimize the role of Mary leaves the Protestants with an incomplete picture of Christ.
I define "core" as that knowledge which is necessary, but not sufficient, to believe and have faith in the correct God.
Mary is indispensable in understanding the Incarnation of the Word. The frequency of nestorian error popping up among the Protestant is a direct result of their fear of the implication of the Mother of God title. (emphasis added)
Why is that? You make Christ a dependent of Mary in the spiritual sense. That just isn't right. ...... Protestants have always acknowledged that Jesus is God, and that Mary gave birth to Him. If some have freaked out about that, it is on them, not us. Not the Protestants you deal with every day on this forum. It appears you are openly saying that to get to Christ one must go through Mary. Is there any wonder at all about Protestant criticism concerning your Mariology?
Mary and her spiritual children are against whom the calumnies of the Dragon are directed in Apocalypse 12. The ease with which Protestant groupings splinter and fracture betray an unconcern for unity, while Mary is the basis of such unity.
The "woman" in Revelation 12 is Israel, not Mary. And, it is betraying that you say Mary is the basis for your unity. I think of another name for the source of the agreement in faith I have with my Protestant brethren, and it ain't Luther or Calvin.
Mary gives us a model of discipleship different from the apostles. She is not shown converting anyone and left no scripture. But she is one who has no vanity and never betrays Him. She is, nevertheless, given us not only as a mother but also as a perfect disciple: "Blessed are these who keep and follow the Word of God".
I agree that Mary is a role model and we are not told of her sins, but that does not make her perfect and sinless. There are many Biblical actors whose sins we do not know. That doesn't make them sinless either. Mary was many wonderful and admirable things, but she was not perfect. INSTEAD, she was human.
I agree that Mary is a role model and we are not told of her sins, but that does not make her perfect and sinless. There are many Biblical actors whose sins we do not know. That doesn’t make them sinless either. Mary was many wonderful and admirable things, but she was not perfect. INSTEAD, she was human.
= = =
INDEED.
Doctrines and !!!!TRADITIONS!!!! of men are no substitute for Biblical truth.
Very much so. They express the same reality of conquering sin and gaining eternal life for the individual.
In that case, why do you suppose the Bible uses each term distinctly very often? Is the same word used for both in Greek? I notice again that you focus salvation and justification on the deeds of men, rather than God.
The infant has no personal sin. Baptism through the infusion of grace removes the sin of Adam from him. At this point his consciousness does not play at all. Once Fred grows up, being a free agent, he may sin, and should he be fortunate enough to ask, the Church will give him grace to overcome it till, as he is sanctified, he does not sin any longer.
The Church will give him grace. Men will give him grace. I am surprised because with my experience, this really shouldn't surprise me. :) I suppose I am taken aback a little because I have not heard it in these terms before, but it is consistent.
FK: "I disagree that Christ sent anyone "as Himself"."
Your disagreement is with scripture then: "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you" (John 20:21). Plain text.
As you know, I LOVE plain text. :) The strictest sense of this quote would be that "God sent God, as God, and now He sends the Apostles, as God". This is untenable to either of us. So, what is the point of the quote? I contend that it is that Jesus was "sent" under complete and total authority. Under this same authority, Jesus sent His disciples into the world. That is "HOW" they were sent, a synonym for "as".
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