Posted on 01/29/2007 6:45:51 AM PST by stfassisi
Are you saying that the selling of indulgences is error?
Hebrews 11 begins with "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It continues on to give numerous examples of faithful patriarchs. You will find similar examples in Romans, and James. In fact, every example of faithful people given demonstrate that their faith is demonstrated through their actions.
The artificial separation of faith (belief) and works that pervades so much of Christendom is just that, artificial. The Bible teaches no such separation. Faith is composed of the two inseparable components of belief and obedience. Only if one believes the gospel and obeys it does one access the hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
So? Paul was on his way to kill Christians when he fell off his ride
Whoever said Luther was infallible?
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
The right man is in charge. Jesus Christ.
"One has to obtusely torture the Scripture to even come close to the idea (a task that Vicomte13 has affected rather well)"
Task: go to Judaica Store. Find book on "The Essentials of Judaism", or even "Judaism for Dummies". Open to index.
Find "Gehinnom" or "Gehenna" (both will be there).
Turn to that page.
Read how Jewish Hell is also Purgatory.
No affectation at all.
It's called READING THE WORD.
Jesus used the word "Gehenna". He didn't say "Hades". He didn't say "Sheol". He didn't say "Tartarus". He said Gehenna. He said it many times. That was the word he used.
He didn't qualify it. He didn't define it. He didn't explain it.
He didn't do with it what he did to every Jewish doctrine that he wanted to change or explain better. He just used it. Flat. Just like that. A Jew, talking to Jews, says "Gehenna", like a Catholic, talking to Catholics, says "confirmation". To a non-Catholic, what confirmation actually IS, what is happening spiritually, might be confusing, might require explanation. But to a Catholic? No. Confirmation has a clear meaning, and you can just say "my Confirmation", and everybody knows what it means.
Jesus the Jew used Gehenna when speaking to Jews just as matter-of-factly. They all knew that it meant Jewish Hell, which is a Hell of torment and fire, where the worm never sleeps and the fire is not quenched...and where those who have done evil go, some to be purified in the flame and torment, and some who are irretrievably evil to remain for ever. Jewish Hell: Gehenna, MEANS all that, just like "Confirmation" means the sealing of the soul, and chrismation, and the corrective slap, and a certain coming-of-age, and many other things that need not be explained if you say "Confirmation".
Just because WE are confused about the term "Gehenna" doesn't mean it's confusing. It means we're not Jews. Jesus was a Jew. His audience were Jews. They understood it, and understand it. And if we want to know what Jesus meant, all we have to do is ask the Jews. It's not hard.
It's just hard to swallow, because it means the Protestant traditions are simply wrong, and the Catholic traditions are overwrought, and Protestants and Catholics (and the Orthdox), all three, have a lot of energy and power and pride wrapped up in arguments about authority and meaning.
THIS argument is one that can be solved by consulting a Jewish dictionary. It's not hard. It's not confusing.
Jesus was clear and answered all of these questions with that pithy little word "Gehenna". Why WE have to go into agony and bleed a fountain of electronic ink has to do with pride and stubbornness on our part.
I am perfectly willing to keep on repeating this, because it is so, and it is simple. It is an obtuse torture of the Scripture to do anything BUT read "Gehenna" as a Jew of the First Century (or today) would understand it, and as Jesus, one such Jew, used it when addressing Jewish people.
Gehenna means Hell, which includes Purgatory. That's what the BIBLE says.
All the rest of this wind is Christian tradition (little "T") that seeks to twist the meaning of the Bible into a doctrine that fits the traditions of the different Christian sects. THIS is the sort of thing Jesus warned against when he warned against traditions.
Why?
Because THIS twisting of Jesus' simple word and meaning: Gehenna, is being used to argue that you don't have to DO anything to AVOID Gehenna, but all four Gospels are filled to the brim with Jesus telling everyone who would listen what they needed to specifically DO to avoid getting pitched into it. To say that it doesn't exist, or that a Christian can't end up there, contradicts Jesus, and that is just an extraordinary thing to do if one believes he's God!
Sure. How much money ya got?
:)
The Jews also did not believe in the resurrection of souls either and based their hopes of immortality in their ability to create offspring. Just because they believed something doesn't make it so.
They believed that their messiah would be earthly not spiritual, and certainly Jesus did not teach according to that idea.
As for Gehenna, it is an actual valley and was for future punishment. If it was meant as a purgatory then the Jewish idea was limited to one year. Again, that this was their conception of an afterlife does not make it any more real than an other idea they may have had that was their imagination. A belief in ghosts by the Irish doesn't make them real.
no
Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
As far as Gehenna goes, I've got no qualms with you calling it Hell and Purgatory. The problem comes in when you postulate that a soul that enters the place can be earned out of it. THAT is the problem! This doctrine is a fabrication of the RCC for its own ulterior motives and has no basis in Scripture. Far from it, if Purgatory, as the RCC teaches it, is true then the atonement of Christ is a mockery, an unnecessary humiliation suffered by the God of the Universe. Purgatory, as postulated by the RCC, makes God both a masochist and a sadist. Purgatory, as postulated by the RCC, means that God is not just or righteous.
Purgatory is a false doctrine, giving false hope to deceived people whose ears have been tickled.
If you can show me what part of the bible Luther wrote, I'll take an interest
Yes, the intricacy of the Indulgence system is one of those things that makes one uncomfortable.
Does King James' unauthorized translation of the Bible count as extra-biblical?
Vicomte,
Are you saying that the selling of indulgences was an error of the Roman Church? Was it a mistake? Was it a fallible practice of the infallible church?
Do I smell the acrid aroma of hypocrisy from the RCC, or is there a simple way to hand-wave it away?
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