The Not So Secret Rapture

Dr. ELike so much of modern religion (and maybe all religion), it may start out conservative and Scripturally-faithful, as hard as that may be, but liberalism seems to creep in without fail.

That is a condescending tone in a discussion about Methodism.

do you mean that modern-day Methodism which rejects Calvinism is not conservative or Scripturally-faithful? That's a pretty broad brush against all Methodists.

I think the best cure against this creep of liberalism is fleeing to orthodoxy.

I like this from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy

This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have falled into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.

It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic.

The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so as exactly to avoid enormous obstacles.

She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly.

The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. ....

to have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom -- that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands.

To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect

Xzins: "I am still unable to overcome the hurdle of God foreseeing someone exercise their own choice and using that as the basis for His choosing them. It puts the cart before the horse....you have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. I simply move that event back a step into the time before God created into God’s editing the future time."

Perhaps if you don't think of God doing this before time, rather outside of time?

The way I see it, we exist on a timeline ---A--------------B--.

A and B are events in time, along this strict line. A happened before B in the timeline. But yet, God exists outside this timeline, so to him, the timeline is like the line turned 90 degrees to the plane of the screen -- a dot in which A and B merge, so the ultimate one, everything is an eternal NOW.

I’ll continue chewing on it until I figure it out by the Grace of Almighty God...whose I am. valid -- so do we all. God be with us on our journey.

But look here, Dr. E, none of us believe that we earn the grace that saves us is earned or merited or deserved.
Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.

The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. As Augustine said
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing. De Natura et gratia
The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high.

Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men.

Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit.

With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful.Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

From the catechism of the Catholic Church

I've never been to Mt. Athos though a cousin of mine invites me to go up every year or so in the fall with a group of attorneys. I've just never gotten around to it. They stay for 5 days on a retreat at Simonopetra. Some ouzo is good, others not so good. A cheap one which is very good is called simply "12". I generally don't drink it, though, as it is real "crazy drink" and the hangovers are terrible. As for retsina, well I was in college before I found out that wine didn't taste like pine pitch. It is still my favorite wine...cold out of a barrel sitting at lunch by the sea.

"kolokothanota"

Do you mean kolokithopita, squash pie?

"something with feta cheese and spinach. mmm..."

You mean spanakopita; She Who Must Be obeyed made some last weekend. We eat it regularly. Get a recipe and make some. It's quite easy actually.

snip: Fascinating; you have presented two very different definitions from Webster and claim that they are the same

Spirited: There is no one so blind as he who will not see.

Scientistic materialists are disconnected fom reality. Like moles they look ever downwards, seeing dirt, rocks, and roots yet irrationally, never realizing that what they see is spiritually comprehended.

After ignorantly lumping monists such as Buddhists and Jains in with Christians Mark opines: Either the world is real and objective or else it isn’t

Spirited: Buddhists, Jains and Western Neo-Platonists are monists, in this case, spiritual pantheists. This means that all that exists is a self-creating, self-sustaining substance that is non-living spirit; that all things are diverse parts of this substance, and that what we take to be a material world is really an illusory projection of the one substance.

Scientistic materialism is also monism. Being that it is merely the flip-side of spiritual pantheism it teaches that all that exists is the Cosmos, as Carl Sagan used to teach. Like Karl Marx, Lenin, and before them the Chinese and Epicurean Atomists, Sagan was saying that all that exists is a self-generated, self-sustaining “one substance” and that it is matter and the energy that flows through it.

No spiritual dimension exists and all things are nothing but diverse parts of the irrational substance that is matter.

In that materialism reduces all things...including man...to aggregates of irrational matter, it must deny the existence of the unseen (metaphysical and/or spiritual) dimension and explain away man’s spiritual endowments: mind, conscience, and will. In other words, materialists must outwardly deny what they really do know is self-evidently true.....that they think, freely choose (will) and feel guilt.

That materialists cannot live by what they teach is made evident by their boasting. They love to boast of their “intellectual superiority,” yet by their own stupid preachments, they are nothing but mindless material bodies——wooden puppets mindlessly dancing to the tune of equally mindless nature.

The Biblical worldview on the other hand, teaches that though man’s body and brain are indeed material, his mind-soul transcends the material. The brain, as Sir John Eccles has observed, is a computer used by the “ghost in the machine.”

Though not a Christian, Eccles has nevertheless posited the mind-body dualism unique to the Biblical worldview. In short, he is agreeing with the Bible that man is both material and spiritual.

The mind-body dualism of the Bible is not to be confused with monist Gnostic Manichean dualism.

Only with Biblical dualism is the world real and objective while men, who are both material and spirit, have spiritual minds that allow them to transcend and therefore objectively observe the irrational material.

It is only from within the Biblical worldview that the two definitions-—faith/belief and knowledge-—can be fully comprehended as complements rather than as antithetical units, as you erroneously “believe” them to be.

As long as you remain imprisoned within and are a part of the earthen-tunnel of materialism your comprehension will be truncated, blind-sided and peculiar.

He goes with a group of attorneys!!! Ay-yi-yi!!

hmm... cold retsina by the sea... I prefer beer though :-)

Perhaps, it is a squash pie, yum, yum.

Yes, spinakopita - that's delivious, let me google that for the recipe. Thank you again!

That materialists cannot live by what they teach is made evident by their boasting. They love to boast of their “intellectual superiority,” yet by their own stupid preachments, they are nothing but mindless material bodies——wooden puppets mindlessly dancing to the tune of equally mindless nature.

So very true.

In that worldview, the mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon which cannot cause anything to happen.

Thank you oh so very much for your excellent essay-post, dear sister in Christ!

You may believe what you wish, that is your choice, but yet, if one reads (John 6:26-72) especially (John 6:52-72), it is impossible to interpret what Christ is saying as a metaphor or as just spiritual. The words used demand a literal interpretation -- "eat" and "drink". Because Jesus starts off describing manna (John 6:31-32) and then talks of giving food that will be really eaten.

Yada, Yada, Yada...Let's see you interpret this one literally...

Joh 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Or can't you talk with a size 12 in your mouth???

Nah, I don't eat shoes -- do you? Perhaps you need to actually read the Bible in context. I know it can be hard to read whole sentences, but try

here's the entire verse for you

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.
27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” 29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?
31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
42 They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered.
44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.
45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[b] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.
46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[c] and life.
64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life
69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

if you read in the Bible, starting from John 6:30, we read

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do?
31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.

They asked Him for a sign, saying that Moses gave them manna in the desert. If Jesus (according to them) was aspiring to the level of Moses, He should do something as big as that.

and Jesus says something strange to them -- He says Moses didn't give you bread, My father did, and bread that comes down from heaven. Then He says that HE is the bread of life, HE is the manna -- and manna was to be eaten.

The Jews made the same mistake you did, which is to think he was speaking as a metaphor.

And it was NOT a metaphor as Jesus REPEATED the same thing, saying

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.
50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

And now the crowd is openly rebellious saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
And

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.

Note -- Jesus doesn't clear up the Metaphor, like he did in Matt. 16:5–12

5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.
6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”
8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?
9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
11 How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

So, Jesus DOES indicate when it is a metaphor and when it isn't

In case of John 6 it is clear what Jesus means -- don't make Him out to be a liar -- look at the reaction of his DISCIPLES, people who had heard his teachings for so long and followed him

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”...

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

You cannot say that this was just bread and wine of that this is a metphor for coming and having faith in the Lord or some kind of metphor for believing in Christ because of the reaction of the Jews and the very language -- to eat one's flesh and drink the blood means to do violence on some one. You see it even in Hindi where a threat is "Mein tera Khoon pie jaongaa" or "I will drink your blood" -- and this is among vegetarians! To drink a persons blood means a serious threat of injury.

You cannot even say it was a metaphor by incorreclty comparing it to John 10:9 (I am the gate/doorway) or John 15:1 (I am the true vine) is because this is not referenced in the entire verse in the same way as John 6 which shows the entire incident from start to finish of Jesus saying His body is to be eaten, repeating it and seeing his disciples go and not correcting them (as he did in Matthew 16).

You cannot even say it was a metaphor by incorreclty comparing it to John 10:9 (I am the gate/doorway) or John 15:1 (I am the true vine) is because this is not referenced in the entire verse in the same way as John 6 which shows the entire incident from start to finish of Jesus saying His body is to be eaten, repeating it and seeing his disciples go and not correcting them (as he did in Matthew 16). Even in the literal sense -- Christ says he is the gateway to heaven and the vine such that we get nourishment with him as the connecting path. But John 6 is much much more than mere symbolism as He categorically states that "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55).

Even at the end of John 6, Jesus rebukes those who think of what He has said as a metaphor by emphasising that

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life.
64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”

Jesus repeats the rebuke against just thinking in terms of human logic (Calvin's main problem) by saying

John 8:15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.
16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.

Just using human logic as Calvinist thought does, without God's blessings behind it fails in grace.John 6:63 does not refer to Jesus's statement of his own flesh, if you read in context but refers to using human logic instead of dwelling on God's words.

And, all of this is confirmed in Paul's writings to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16)

6 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

and also 1 Cor 11:27-29

27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.

How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ" and "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.

Your exposition is so clear. Thanks, once again.

I appreciate the kind offer. If memory serves correctly, the Methodists, although they are direct descendants of the Anglicans, aren’t considered close enough...or something like that. I’ve often wondered why various Lutheran offshoots of the original Lutheran are close enough, but it probably has some logic behind it of which I’m unaware.

In other words, the spiritual mind of MarkB has assented to the “metaphysical” proposition that knowledge is only knowledge if it is “sensed.” This “metaphysical” proposition was advanced on the authority of others (Atomists/scientistic materialists) and MarkB accepts this authoritative “metaphysical” proposition “without other evidence” [i.e., without having to go do any "sensing" for himself] because he has been assured that this “belief” is scientific. In sum, MarkB accepts by faith [belief] that he can only know what is “sensed.”

Indeed! As you so astutely note, dear spirited, MarkBnsr's logical position is that of "the pot calling the kettle black." LOL!!! :^)

I think you are so right to point out that MarkBsnr indeed "has" a spiritual mind. Unfortunately, it seems he's been stuffing it with junk. As Chesterton noted, when a man ceases to believe in God that doesn't mean that he doesn't then believe in nothing. Rather it means he'll believe in anything. Nature hates a vacuum....

I also agree with you that MarkBnsr has crossed over into what, for him, should be "forbidden territory": metaphysics. The materialist/mechanistic view of the universe that he seems to hold stipulates that "all things supervene on the physical." That is, the ultimate principle of the universe reduces to matter in its motions. All natural effects must have natural causes. There are absolutely no spiritual or metaphysical principles or entities operating in the universe. To believe otherwise is to confess ignorance and superstition....

But this is a philosophical, even a religious statement, not a scientific one! Just try to subject it to the scientific method and you'll see what I mean.

Perhaps this is why some thinkers make the distinction between that which is "scientific," and that which is "scientistic." But I digress....

May I observe that this worldview is a total reduction of/abstraction from Nature, which then seeks to imprison Nature in the abstraction?

Who is really talking about "Reality" here???

Who is being, "objective," and who "subjective," here? The metaphysical materialist, or the humble student of Plato?

Maybe the following might help to put this problem into perspective:

... Oh priest, consider mankind, how the phenomena of life and Nature are under the very eyes of them all; but they, in their puny selfishness, see only the few things of which they can make use. Very rare are those who seek the Cause for its own sake; very rare are those who allow themselves to be moved by those phenomena of periodicity, attraction and repulsion which are the manifestation of the Ideas. How many, do you think, are there of those who seek with their heart the divine mystery which makes the waters rise to the sky and makes them descend again through the Nile to our Earth?

... How many are those who, without arrogance, search for the power that moves and the law that is behind all this?
— adapted from Her-Bak: The Living Face of Ancient Egypt by Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, by Joseph Needleman in A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth.

Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your most penetrating essay/post!

The Presbyterians really hate the guts of anyone who does not toe the Calvinist line and say that Calvinism = Christianity

Hate? C'mon now, the Presbys have really tweaked you, and calming down would help. If they do, so what? Rome condemned us to hell, Geneva hates us, got to be doing something right.

The materialist/mechanistic view of the universe that he seems to hold stipulates that "all things supervene on the physical." That is, the ultimate principle of the universe reduces to matter in its motions. All natural effects must have natural causes. There are absolutely no spiritual or metaphysical principles or entities operating in the universe. To believe otherwise is to confess ignorance and superstition....

But this is a philosophical, even a religious statement, not a scientific one! Just try to subject it to the scientific method and you'll see what I mean.

So very true.

Thank you for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

it is opinion regarding what Luther did or did not teach about double predestination

It wasn't the opinion of those at the time, since that teaching was never incorporated in the Confessional documents. Nor has it been understood that way in the centuries since his death. It is a recent, novel idea, similar to some of the Marian doctrines. Maybe Catholics and Presbyterians are getting closer after all.

From the Link:

As to the question why not all men are converted and saved, seeing that God's grace is universal and all men are equally and utterly corrupt, we confess that we cannot answer it. From Scripture we know only this: A man owes his conversion and salvation, not to any lesser guilt or better conduct on his part, but solely to the grace of God. But any man's non-conversion is due to himself alone; it is the result of his obstinate resistance against the converting operation of the Holy Ghost. Hos. 13:9.

............................

Calvinists solve this mystery, which God has not revealed in His Word, by denying the universality of grace; synergists, by denying that salvation is by grace alone. Both solutions are utterly vicious, since they contradict Scripture and since every poor sinner stands in need of, and must cling to, both the unrestricted universal grace and the unrestricted "by grace alone," lest he despair and perish.

Conversion

Calvinists solve this mystery

No, Calvinists accept the mystery that is God's reason for His election which is founded on His good pleasure alone. They do not, however, as various semi-Pelagians do, deny that men are elected because Scripture affirms that fact over and over.

"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." -- Ephesians 1:4-6

"But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." -- John 10:26