Posted on 05/10/2013 7:36:49 PM PDT by boatbums
““Not because the Father in Him”?? You’re making that up,”
How, exactly, am I making that up? Isn’t it you who is making it up that when Christ takes on a title of God, applying it to Himself “I am,” that He was really just KIDDING? Why go through the trouble of accepting worship, which no man or angel ever does, and being called Almighty, and declaring His sovereign right to be so called, and yet have it all be “well, not really ME! Just the Father, is who I really mean.” As for John 14, there is nothing to dodge in there at all.
“At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
Christ even says that the Father is in Him, and HE is in the Father. And then WE are in Christ. From your logic, whenever the Father glorifies Himself, is He glorifying the Son within Him? When Christ glorifies Himself, is He speaking of us as the Alpha and the Omega?
Your logic sure is illogical, and I lifted up my eyebrow Spock style for you too.
“There is no separation. God tried to tell you in John 14, but you don’t believe his words there.”
So I take it you’re a pantheist? It is illogical to apply it only to the Son and the Father, when we’re in there too.
Amen! Thank you for restating what is THE most important truth we fight for - the gospel of the grace of God. Many people think they understand it and many also put their faith in their religion to save them - even when that religion adds all kinds of works righteousness to the mix as necessary for salvation. But the GRACE of God - and he used that word SPECIFICALLY - means his gift is UNmerited, UNdeserved, UNachievable and given freely through mercy and love. If we grasp what it is God has done for us, our lives cannot help but be lived out of gratitude for his grace.
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. (II Corinthians 9:15)
Yes, but the fact that you call yourself a “Committed Evangelical Protestant” makes me wonder if you have really found it.
My experience is that most of the those are deceived by the false teaching of the apostate Christian Church that Jesus is God, rather than realizing he is the Saviour, Messiah, and Son of God.
Amen! and also...If we grasp what it is God has done for us...we will never fall!
Good question! I always wonder how someone could go from being an Evangelical Protestant to any religion that cannot or will not give any assurance of salvation in spite of the clear promises we have from God's word. I have actually asked a few and their response has been, "I didn't think about it." or, "That didn't occur to me.". It was much like the early Christians who were bombarded with the doctrines of the Judaizers and who insisted they must be under the laws of Moses in order to be saved. These are the ones Paul said were preaching an accursed gospel and who were, themselves, accursed because of it. God's grace is not something to be earned or deserved and it is definitely NOT something to take advantage of.
Actually, it is simply a reasonable response to your own words. You said:
If *anyone* states anything here that goes against the infallible and unchanging teachings of the Catholic Church, you’re right... I will not listen to it. Because that means that I’m allowing another’s heresy to influence me.
Your mind is already made up, you said so yourself. You refuse to consider any evidence that proves you may have been deceived. At this point, it could only be the Holy Spirit that breaks through and points you to the truth. I sincerely hope you grasp the truth of the grace of God and what it means to BE a child of the Most High.
“My experience is that most of the those are deceived by the false teaching of the apostate Christian Church that Jesus is God, rather than realizing he is the Saviour, Messiah, and Son of God.”
Yes, those silly apostate Christians! What were they thinking when they foolishly believed what the scripture said about Jesus being God!! We all know them scriptures are no good! Tedw is the one we ought to take seriously on this one!
It isn't "me" but Webster, the author of the OP, that goes by the title of Evangelical Protestant. I generally say I am a Christian and leave it at that. Far too many people think attaching labels is what defines ones faith.
As to who you say is "deceived by the apostate Christian Church", you would have to be more specific since the Body of Christ, the church, is made up of all those that are in Christ through faith in him. One major tenet of our faith is that Jesus IS Almighty God incarnate (in the flesh). He IS the Son of God who took on human flesh to be the Messiah, the kinsman redeemer and Savior for all mankind. This is definitely NOT an "apostate" belief but was taught by the Holy Scriptures - both Old and New Testaments - and confirmed by Jesus' own words, the words of His Apostles and believed by the church from the start.
Original intent, Original audience, and the Churches Paul was referring to were local parishes in those areas.
I have prov en time and time again that protestants engage in intellectual dishonesty, and really don't read the Bile, in context or otherwise. Most of you only know what you read from other anti-Catholics or hear from pastor bob on Sundays.
If you don't like derision then: 1) Start telling the truth about the Catholic Church.
2) When someone points out your errors be adult enough to admit it.
I showed you chapter and verse that defined each of these as work, and against the levitical law, you showed NOTHING except your own opinion.
Nice try, thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Iscool: Nice try to rile me up, but it doesn’t work on me. I never said I researched all 40,000. I said I researched many and then came to the realization that the fact that there are 40,000 and counting (it may have been *only* 30,000 at the time) was a clear indication that every single one of them broke away from the real Church...because every single one of them knew better than the one before them.
boatbums: I thoroughly researched the one, true Faith and am in no need for others to show me I have been deceived because I have not been deceived.
And whether anyone believes me regarding debating, I don’t care. I may have started this thread defending the Church, but then remembered it was futile to continue. It appears that I am now defending my own comments about my choices, not the Church.
I understand ...and it should.
And just how did you come to the realization that there are 40,000 and counting churches outside the Catholic church?
Who did the counting and what criteria did they use?
How do you know you can trust their numbers and their judgment as to what makes a different denomination?
What source did you use to verify those statistics?
I stopped counting at two, since the point was proved.
Such is ALWAYS the case.
1. The ellipses between “ ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’” and “But I know that very frequently at a later time,” are simply unacceptable. Clearly it’s this quote (or entire passage really) from his “Retractions” that forms the basis for your and Webster’s (and other’s claim) that St. Augustine rejected the Catholic notion that Christ did not build His Church on Peter but ONLY on his confession of faith. The fact that there are ellipses right in between the critical passage is almost laughable if it weren’t so embarassing in its benefit to that central claim.
It’s entirely possible, for example, that the Saint wasn’t necessarily rejecting that notion (that upon Peter the Church was built), but maybe he was further clarifying what the term “Rock” meant with respect to “upon this rock”. Clearly he was saying that he then suggests the “rock” is Christ, but in the portion obscured by the ellipses, maybe he was saying something to the effect that, “this does not mean that the Church does not find as its head today the successor of Peter”. After all, the letter I provided earlier clearly shows St. Augustine at least had a respect for the succession of Popes. I doubt he “retracted” THAT much, especially since by your own previous post his retractions deal with “errors” he believed he made in Scriptural exegesis, not Church governance.
Again my extreme doubt in the conclusion comes from prior experience digging into similar convenient ellipses used by Protestants, only to find they obscure an entirely different meaning.
2. Don’t like #1 above? Fine forget it and just focus on the last sentence from what was quoted, “But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable.”
Those are St. Augustine’s own words there (allegedly)! Right? HARDLY the resounding rejection of the establishment of the papacy you, Webster and others clearly imply in trumpeting St. Augustine about as some kind of ancient anti-Catholic.
He’s clearly saying there that “even with all this said, I still grant the possibility that this retraction is itself wrong, and I was more correct earlier”.
And if you think this is typical of the man, then you don’t know him well at all. He certainly wasn’t shy about expressing confidence in his opinion of himself when he believed he was right.
To those accustomed to distorting Scripture to fit their theology the distortion of ECFs presents no moral dilemma. William Webster is not a theologian, he is a business man and has written to satisfy the appetites of a paying contingent; anti-Catholics who buy his books because he tells them what they want to hear. Webster's works follow a pattern of beginning with an hypothesis and then assembling random factoids, snippets and incomplete statements to support his hypothesis. Within each of his hypotheses is a premise that the Catholic Church cannot be permitted to be right. Intellectual honesty is never a consideration.
Peace be with you
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