The Seal of Confession and The Virtue of Religion

The Hermeneutic of Continuity ^ | 8/17/11 | Fr. Tim Finnigan

[smvoice]

My question to all/any Roman Catholics is this: Exactly WHAT does Christ save you from? You all profess He is your Saviour, but from what?

[MarkBsnr]

The guys walks around and sits with a half a grapefruit on his head while wearing a dress adorned with real jewels and real gold...He looks like no one else in the world...

The Servant of the Servants of God? Reminds me of these guys, but I have no idea where the real jewels and the real gold is. Perhaps you might enlighten us where dresses adorned with real jewels and real gold (as opposed to unreal jewels and unreal gold) are:

Oh, that's right. Arians don't like to acknowledge that the Jews are our elder brethren.

Wearing a dress? Kinda reminds me of these guys:

Not like anyone in the world? Well, he does as a few do; he washes their feet like Jesus did in total humility:

And people kneel and bow when they are in his presence...

Sounds like you've never been in the presence of a man of God. Have you ever washed somebody's feet in total humility in public?

An anonymous figure??? Sure...And I've got an igloo in Arizona you may be interested in buying...

You should sell tickets to the Church of Iscool services. I bet that they'd be a success. There is not nor should there be public lauding of the service of God. Unlike the Lord of the LaZBoy Throne of Sunday Sports Theology in the Church of Iscool (population one).

[MarkBsnr]

Mark! Your too much! LOL!!

Nonsense. The Doobie Brothers did it right: Jesus is just alright for me...

[MarkBsnr]

Mark! Your too much! LOL!!

Nonsense. The Doobie Brothers did it right: Jesus is just alright for me...

[MarkBsnr]

Hebrews 9:7.

In addition to the Beatitudes and almost all of the teachings of Jesus.

You don’t get to preJudge. And you don’t get to pronounce your own Judgement.

Period.

[MarkBsnr]

Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey would be very proud. Say hi for me when you meet them.

We obviously don't run in the same circles...I'm not familiar with your friends...Are they Catholic priests???

They're the guys who write the theology of the Church of Iscool, apparently.

[MarkBsnr]

Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey would be very proud. Say hi for me when you meet them.

We obviously don't run in the same circles...I'm not familiar with your friends...Are they Catholic priests???

Why are you asking me the identity of your guidance counselors?

[stonehouse01]

St. Jerome was a master of the Latin and Greek. His native tongue was Illyrian which I would assume is a Greek dialect. Old Latin - meaning? The saint was versed in real Greek. The Hebrew scriptures went first to the Greek and then to the Latin via Jerome. This man suffered and he knew the languages. Of course “Marty” used Jerome’s Vulgate - that was all there was!!! and I repeat - Marty was a failed Augustinian. Do you suggest that 1 1500’s Martin Luther was more in tune than a 300’s scholar who was much closer to the texts and a language expert?? No logic to that premise.

[Natural Law]

"The words that Paul preached and wrote are just as authoritative as the words Jesus spoke..."

Yet another affirmation of your Paulian heresy and a reason you are not actually a Christian.

[smvoice]

Perhaps you could use a reading, or re-reading of Acts 9:15-16, Natural Law.

"But the Lord said unto him (Ananias), Go thy way: for he (Paul) is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings and the children of Israel:

For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake."

This is Jesus Christ speaking here. Perhaps it's even in red letters in your Bible. Hardly a "Paulian heresy" and even more so hardly a reason to accuse someone of not being a Christian. If you are going to accuse someone of something so outrageous, perhaps you should read beyond Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus Christ DID say other things to other people. Written down in plain sight. For those who choose to look.

[metmom]

I don't pronounce my own judgment. Jesus did it for me.

Simply believing that what God says is true is called faith and trust. God is not a liar. If He says that whoever believes in Him has eternal life and that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption, then we are.

John 3:16-18 16"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

[metmom]

My question to all/any Roman Catholics is this: Exactly WHAT does Christ save you from? You all profess He is your Saviour, but from what?

That's a good question because Catholicism does not teach the certainty of being saved from hell. I've yet to meet a Catholic who isn't sure where they're going to end up.

Obviously neither the church nor Jesus are saving them from anything, much less hell.

If that's the case, just what are they being saved from? There's nothing else.

[boatbums]

You cannot revise or replace the Gospel of Christ with the writings of Paul, the Paul only came to reinforce, clarify and teach the Gospel of Jesus. Where the Letters of Paul seem to be at odds with the Gospel you must interpret Paul with respect to the primacy of Jesus words.

"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."- John 20:19–23

What is your explanation for how the disciples (not just the Apostles) were breathed on by Jesus to receive the Holy Spirit right after the resurrection but then again received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

This was the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised them would come AFTER he left them.

John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

[metmom]

Scripture is Scripture. If God gave Jesus the words or someone else, the source is still God. How can someone stand in judgment of God’s own words, inspired and given by the Holy Spirit and declare that they’re not good enough, that they don’t measure up to the arbitrary standard some men have decided to set up for themselves?

God’s not good enough for them.

What chutzpah.

2 Peter 1:19-21
19And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

2 Peter 3:15-16

15And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

[Natural Law]

"for he (Paul) is a chosen vessel unto me,..."

No disputing that Paul is a chosen messenger for Jesus, the Word made flesh, nothing more. Let me repeat myself, where Paul appears to disagree with the Gospel the hierarchy of the Revealed Word requires that deference be given to the Gospel.

Giving primacy to the Epistles and letters of Paul over the Gospel of Jesus is indeed a Paulian heresy.

[boatbums]

This is where Protestantism suffers a major breakdown. It fails to recognize the hierarchy of Scripture and with it the fundamental definition of Christianity. Catholics are Christians not Paulians. You cannot revise or replace the Gospel of Christ with the writings of Paul, the Paul only came to reinforce, clarify and teach the Gospel of Jesus. Where the Letters of Paul seem to be at odds with the Gospel you must interpret Paul with respect to the primacy of Jesus words.

This is the major fallacy of Roman Catholicism because it cannot, or will not, accept that there IS NO hierarchy of Scripture. ALL Scripture is God-breathed. The teachings of Jesus as written down by divinely designated authors, is the full counsel of God to us and he has excluded nothing. Jesus quoted the Old Testament as from God and authoritative, it was his sword of truth against the wiles of Satan at his temptation. All of Scripture is our Sword of the Spirit - the Word of Truth. Paul never contradicts Jesus nor vice versa because it ALL came from the same source. When John in his epistle I John says in chapter 5, verse 13 - These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. Some of you say we are committing the sin of "presumption" because you say no one can KNOW they are saved. Yet Jesus said the same thing in John 10:27-30 -My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. By your indictment, you are calling Jesus a liar because you refuse to believe he meant what he said and reiterated by inspiring the other writers of the New Testament to repeatedly say the same thing. So who really is the Christian here?

[smvoice]

Exactly. Which is why we will never receive an answer to the question. They have the Pope who holds the keys to the kingdom and only he can open the door, priests who can retain or remit sins and turn wafers and wine into Christ’s body and blood, and Mary who dispenses grace and intercedes on their behalf. Just what DID Christ save them from? And with this, it once again blows up in the faces of the pawns.

[smvoice]

Deference be given to the Gospel...WHICH GOSPEL?? What is the Gospel? Once again I ask. And DO keep this in mind NL.

"In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ ACCORDING TO MY (Paul's) Gospel." Rom. 2:16.

The hierarchy of the Revealed Word? And the Gospel of Jesus? Please just tell me what the Gospel of Jesus is.

[boatbums]

I'm pretty much in the OSAS category. My contention is that someone like that was never saved to begin with. Saying so doesn't make it so. That's where the fruit of a godly life gives credibility to someone's claim. Not that the works save them, but the works demonstrate to the world that saving faith has been exercised.

I'm in there with ya! I wonder, johngrace, what this person would answer if you asked him privately what he thinks God has to say about his sinful living? If you get an answer like, "Oh, he doesn't care as long as I have faith in Jesus.", then you can probably assume this guy has no idea of what he talks about. He has misunderstood what exactly Jesus meant by believing and receiving him as Savior. To have such a callous disregard for how our willful sinning dishonors God and insults his grace is a good indication of a dead faith and shows no evidence of the Holy Spirit's renewing work of new birth.

If, on the other hand, you bringing his sinful conduct to his attention breaks him out of the mistaken shell he built around his actions and causes him to fall on his knees before God in earnest repentance and a renewed commitment to walk in obedience before his Heavenly Father, then you have done a wonderful work for Christ. You have helped to correct a brother and/or led a person to saving faith in Jesus Christ - the kind that actually DOES result in a renewed mind.

By all means, don't let another chance go by to confront this man about his life. God has put him on your mind for a reason and, by being a true brother in Christ, you are cooperating with Jesus to draw all men to him.

[metmom]

Exactly. Which is why we will never receive an answer to the question. They have the Pope who holds the keys to the kingdom and only he can open the door, priests who can retain or remit sins and turn wafers and wine into Christ’s body and blood, and Mary who dispenses grace and intercedes on their behalf. Just what DID Christ save them from? And with this, it once again blows up in the faces of the pawns.

What with all the players in there, there's hardly a need for Jesus.