In Christ Alone (Happy reformation day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExnTlIM5QgE ^ | Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;

[RnMomof7]

In Christ Alone lyrics

Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;

In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save

?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ

[Cronos]

Get --> I've learnt on this forum that we Catholics should not consider the blatant anti-Church folks as being representative of Protestants. THEY ARE NOT in any way representative of Protestants

If you ask them which groups they belong to, you will find quite a few Unitarians, followers of British-Israelism, OrthodPresbyterian Cult members and other non-Christian groups. You will find an overwhelming number of followers of Calvin -- in fact the overwhelming majority of those who are not Unitarian or British-Israeliism (who believe that the Brits are descendents of the Lost Tribes).

These folks are from small cults -- many are groups of one -- and are very loud, and loudly proclaim that they stand for and speak for ALL Protestants

Yet, on these threads you will find next to no-one from the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Assemblies of God, Arminian churches -- next to no-one. The few Lutherans that come on board will argue on a point and not use slurs and they too seem to be disgusted with Calvinists and leave as soon as one of that crew starts her screeching.

If you check a few threads, you will see where the Calvinists here attack Arminians and Methodists (saying that they follow a Satanic bible -- yes, that's what one thread was about) or Pentecostals or Anglicans.

The opposing side here are basically followers of Calvin and their hangers-on. There are decent folks like boatbums here who can argue without resorting to slurs. Others aren't quite the same.

[Cronos]

“prefer Paul over Christ” —> astutely put. I think Mark or NL or Narses once looked up an OPC group website and their readings were purely from Pauline Epistles, no readings from the OT or Gospels..

[Cronos]

Atheism is rampant more due to a retreat from strictness. A poster on FR once pointed out that the reason why Christianity appealed to the Roman populace (who were really atheists just going through the motions of offering sacrifice to their gods), rather than the other competing religions is because Christianity was demanding, was strict. It gave people a sense of higher purpose.

When that relaxed with the Mainline Protestant groups ever since 1930 and Vatican II, there has been a drop in attendance

yet, most of these are not atheists -- it's very intellectually demanding to be an atheist and most people aren't -- they believe in something, even if it is a spirit, the Force, shopping day

No, what people are searching for is direction, discipline -- even if "they want to be free".

This is parallel to what Douglas Adams wrote about a world that had been shrouded by a cosmic cloud for millenia, when that cloud lifted and they saw the stars, they said "we don't like it, it must go" and they became fanatical in their aim to destroy everything in the universe. And no one understood why they would do that because the rest of the universe had lost it's passion.

[Cronos]

"You are NOT CAPABLE of shedding any light - God's Word is the light." ---> apples and oranges. God's word is the light for the world to come to Christ.

The phrase used by annalex was in pointing out the errors of the Calvin's followers.

The Church shines in God's life, proclaiming God's Word as we have since Apostolic times and will continue to do so.

[presently no screen name]

The Church shines in God's life, proclaiming God's Word as we have since Apostolic times and will continue to do so.

in God's LIFE?

HIS Church, Jesus The Christ as The Head, proclaims His Word - just as HE designed it to do.

The RCC church with, the man Peter as the head, teaches heresy. They oppose God's Word. The RCC is known as the counterfeit church and all it's teachings/doctrines will be burnt to ash.

Remember: Your pope kissed the koran - that should tell you something about the RCC - if that doesn't open your eyes - then Catholics deliberately chose to be blind. The Catholics and the muzzies serve the same god according to your infallible leader.

It must suck to be Catholic - going around putting out fires in an attempt to protect something that is already exposed. God's Word, the Lamp, the Light of the World exposed the Vatican.

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

[Cronos]

Well, I wasn't the one who made up a slogan "semper reformanda" i.e. "always reforming"

And, come on, you have to admit that that
1. The first reformer, Luther and his church remain pretty close to orthodoxy, believing in the True Presence, indeed in everything that is there in the Nicene Creed (which I believe is a clear distinguisher between Christians and non-Christians)
2. However, by quoting sola scriptura, he did open a can of worms -- which Luther himself said made each man chose his own snippings from the bible(can't find the quote but Luther despaired that some denied the true presence, some denied baptism for infants, some even denied the Trinity) -- I do not believe that was Luther's aim in any way, but that is what happened
3. By keeping the same policy of always reforming, you had Calvinist's come and then Zwingli's folks come and deny the true presence, then anabaptists deny infant baptism, then unitarians deny the Trinity.
4. You take one case -- the idea of errors in the Church that Luther pointed out, this became in Calvinism a long standing fault (for centuries) and the Baptists came up with the idea that everything was wrong from 300 AD or earlier (and there was a hidden group of folks from Cathars to Marcionites and Donatists -- notwithstanding that each of these belived something completely different from the other and some were Gnostics (Cathars)). This was finally expounded in Mormon doctrine of the Great Apostasy where the Mormons say "everyone was wrong since Jesus" and Christianity was only rediscovered by J Smith.



This is where the semper reformanda idea leads to -- always changing, twisting etc

While the earliest reformed Churchs are so definitely Christian (Nicene Creed), you can't call the latest groups as Christians (JWs, OPC, etc.)

[Diamond]

I am not being obtuse or engaging in sophistry; the word, nature has various meanings. I might be mistaken about this but it seems to me that you equivocate between two different senses of the word. But there's nothing I can do to change the misunderstanding.

If you make a statement denying any transcendental aspect of human nature, in my view, that statement qualifies as a metaphysical statement. I do not deny any of the physical descriptions you give of our physical makeup. I simply deny that our physical makeup is all we are.

If you believe that everything that exists is material—part of the physical universe, then you can’t have laws of logic because the laws of logic are not physical. If there are no laws of logic you can't reason for two words in a row, and this discussion, quite literally, makes no sense. All it is is atoms spinning around. And there are no such things as "sophistry" and "obtuseness" either because neither sophistry and obtuseness have any "chemical makeup" nor are they "subject to gravity".

Cordially,

[Quix]

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

[Quix]

NOW NOW.

Aren’t you aware that some RC’s seem to prefer to not be confused by facts?

[Quix]

[Quixicated]:

If it looks like worship,
and
it sounds like worship
and
it feels like worship,
and
[it bows and scrapes like worship,
and
it kisses statue toes like worship,
and
it kowtow's like worship,
and
it fawns and caresses like worship,
and
it idolizingly clings with a death grip like worship,]
.
it's NOT fruit salad.

.

INDEED!
That's a keeper!

[Quix]

[Cronos]

Interesting questions: what was He doing -- the answer is we don't know. Is He perfect? Yes. Why did He create us then? I don't know, but it doesn't take away from His perfectness does it if He wishes to create.

Who is He trying to impress? Perhaps us? :)

[Quix]

It’s just one more example of RCs saying one thing and doing another.
It’s transparent.
(Dr Eckleburg)

Yeah,
wellllll,
if your god was
a plastic figure
on a string of beads,
You might
feel a compelling need to be duplicitous, too!

[caww]

He called the church to ..”go out”...not bring them into the sheep fold...of course once they come to Him then of course they are then sheep who hear then hear the sound of His voice.

[Cronos]

Metmom: "It simply goes to show that you CAN'T depend on works. They did and they appealed to them and yet their works clearly didn't save them or in any way contribute to their salvation. "

That's a strawman.

Firstly, as per Church teachings, dogma, our beliefs, Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was was gave us our salvation. That act was/is sufficient for our salvation. His sacrifice is what saved us, we cannot and do not save ourselves. THAT is Church teaching.

So, the Catholic point of view is yes, works do not save us and works do not grant us salvation.

Now, as to your first point of works being useless, you neglect the part which says "the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."

The verse purely means that you should work on the will of the Father, not "I", "I", "I".

[Cronos]

Mark: All remission of sins depends on repentence, but Jesus will draw all men to Him. That is mercy, and not justice.

met: Then what’s the purpose of penance?

you neglect the point of Mark's post. He does not say penance is pointless as, as per M's post: "all remission of sins depends on repentence" -- since there is a dependence, the post indicates that this has a point. Now the second point is that "Jesus will draw all men to Him" -- that's a nice way of saying that God came for all men, but note that that does not indicate in any way that all men will be saved or have their sins remitted.

Jesus will draw all to Him, but many may resist. In either way, you are appending to Mark's post.

All pardon for sins ultimately comes from Christ’s finished work on Calvary.

Penance shows that we truly repent our sins.

Baptism was given to take away the sin inherited from Adam (original sin) and any sins we personally committed before baptism—sins we personally commit are called actual sins, because they come from our own acts. Thus on the day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowds, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38), and when Paul was baptized he was told, "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). And so Peter later wrote, "Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:21).

Post baptism, the sins that we accumulate must be truly repented for us to receive the cleaning grace that is Christ's forgiveness. These do not "clean us" but they are the sign to God that we truly wish to be clean -- HE cleans us

[Cronos]

Boatb --> this post was not directed at you, did you read what Met had posted which brought this post as a response? Did you READ my post which had this bit highlighted?

Here it is again for you:
Um, where is the term *Mother of God* found in Scripture?

NOTE: Met asks where a particular term is found in scripture.

My response was/is directed to Met -- if she asks for where a particular term "Mother of God" is found in scripture, then I ask where are the terms "sola scriptura", "sola fide" or "Trinity" found in Scripture.

Met evidently believes in the latter 3, yet she asks where the former is in scripture without bothering to note that all are not terms directly found in scripture.

[Cronos]

Let me respond to your post, bb with

1. repeating Met's post Um, where is the term *Mother of God* found in Scripture?
NOTE: Met asks where a particular term is found in scripture. If this is somehow implying that the term "Mother of God" is incorrect because it is not in scripture, then I ask where is the term "sola scriptura" in scripture?

Where?

[Cronos]

Let me respond to your post, bb with

1. repeating Met's post Um, where is the term *Mother of God* found in Scripture?
NOTE: Met asks where a particular term is found in scripture. If this is somehow implying that the term "Mother of God" is incorrect because it is not in scripture, then I ask where is the term "sola scriptura" in scripture?

Where?

Just as in describing the non-scriptural term "sola scripture" you resort to scriptural references to prove your belief in the term, we resort to scriptural references to indicate why we believe that:
1. Jesus was/is/will be God
2. Jesus is 100% and 100% God.
3. Jesus was born of Mary (a creature created by Him)

ergo, Mary was the mother of her Creator. She was not the creator of the creator, no more than your mother is your creator, but she was His Mother.

The term Mother of God irrevocably means that Jesus was/is 100% God and 100% man --> He was not some man who became God, He was not just a prophet, He was not a godling or another god, but He was/is God as mary was the Mother of God, not the mother of a man who became God or the mother of a prophet or a godling. By using the term mother of God, you irrevocably mean that He was/is God.

By indicating that He was born of a woman, you indicate that He was also human, that He was not just a phantom or spirit, but had real flesh and blood.

[annalex]

Annalex: The hymen was closed even after birth [of Jesus]. Compare John 20:19

count-your-change: Compare it to what? [quotes verse]

To Jesus passing through the locked door.