Posted on 02/15/2020 11:26:10 AM PST by Carpe Cerevisi
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. 2:5)
There is no way to adequately explain priesthood without reference to mediation. A priest is a mediator between God and Man. From time to time over the years, I have had the verse from 1 Timothy pointed out to me with the argument that there cannot be any mediator other than Christ, and, thus, there cannot be any such thing as a “priest” within the Church. Sometimes the argument becomes even more pointed:
I do not need to go to a priest to have my sins forgiven! I can go directly to God. I don’t want anything or anyone standing between me and Jesus.
If the priesthood (ordained or otherwise) stood between a person and Christ, I would oppose it myself. However, its purpose, like all of the sacraments, is quite the opposite: it is to mediate the presence of Christ, that is to make Him present, not serve in His absence. The greater question, therefore, is whether there need be any sacraments.
That Christ gave us Holy Baptism and the Eucharist is beyond doubt. In particular, with the Eucharist, we are told, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them.” Further, we are commanded to eat His flesh and drink His blood. The notion that the Eucharist is merely a ritual action designed to make us think of Jesus is, historically speaking, absurd. There is only evidence in the early Church that the bread and the wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. Everything said about it in the Scriptures, including the warning of possible sickness accompanying eating it in the wrong manner, argue against mere memorialism.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.ancientfaith.com ...
What we read as extraordinary in the Acts of the Apostles still takes place through the ordinary office of the ministry, where Christ and His benefits are preached and distributed in parishes all around the globe. To be sure, the grasp of this is displayed on various levels from general protestant to Roman Catholic to Eastern Orthodox. While the LORD God certainly may, and has, dealt with men immediately, it is abundantly clear that men hold an office called “pastor” or “priest,” and do so not according to their own whims.
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. 2:5)
Did you even read the article?
A priest I am acquainted with says that THIS as his favorite verse from Scripture.
“ In modern Catholic and Orthodox usage, presbyter is distinct from bishop and synonymous with priest.[”
Yes, added to Scripture...
“The Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the non-Chalcedonian churches, and similar groups typically refer to presbyters in English as priests (priest is etymologically derived from the Greek presbyteros via the Latin presbyter). Collectively, however, their “college” is referred to as the “presbyterium”, “presbytery”, or “presbyterate”.
Again, a scripture has a list of church offices for His church.
Priest is not a church office, nor do the named offices include the activities of modern day catholic or orthodox priests.
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."In context, it is absolutely impossible that this is plain-literal language. It is figurative-literal language, the kind of speech Jesus had been training His students to add to their repertoire of illustrating Biblical truths. Such use in the metaphorical sense had been decorating an adorning the Holy Scriptures for ages, from the beginning of Jehovah's commitment of His thoughts to paper, starting with Job and Moses.
I want you, aMPU, to take note of this particular verse from the Torah, about 1400 years earlier, to illustrate God's unarguably Figurative use of the flesh (fat and kindeys) with the flour-making wheat, and of Blood (equated metaphorically to the freshly-pressed purple juice) of the grape; an expression that Jesus was also equivalently communicating in His reference to the very substantial worth of His words of life-giving belief in Him. This use is found in Deuteronomy 32:14 (AV):
"Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape."It is beyond question that to reduce the gift of everlasting life as consisting of the mere act of a paedobaptized unregenerated undiscipled dupe to eating a plain-literal wheat wafer dipped in (fermented/leavened/rotted toe-jam grape juice toxin) wine; rather than commemorating His death through faith in His ACT of permitting His Body and Blood ONCE to be offered by HIMSELF as being simultaneously both LAMB and ETERNAL HIGH PRIEST and MERCY SEAT ALONE.
Substituting this eat-wafer-drink-wine concept of "transformation of a temporal substance into a spiritual one" is so ridiculous and scripturally implausible that no sensible spiritually-discerning offspring of The Holy Spirit could ever accept it as an explanation that the Romanists camp on. And I believe this is some sort of a use of physical elements as some kind of magical charm for the purpose of buffaloing blinded credulous worldlings into thinking that the ONGOING ingestion is necessary to KEEP their putative relationship with The Father and The Son.
This is such a great FIB that only shows how marvelously patient the Godhead is with the deluded children of men whom He knows that perhaps even ONE of them might exercise the Word-germinating faith of an already-condemned person in the Person, Work, Shed Blood, and Reconciliation Of The Only Begotten Human Son of The God, to receive the incalculable benefit of new birth and everlasting Existence in union with Him; and continually gathering together with others in Remembrance of His Cross-death, and of His Presence as our First Human-with-a-Body, no parts of which have yet been sent back to the earthly sphere. seated royally in Heaven.
For pretenders to manipulate other humans with this superstitious magic charm of redeployed and resubstantized Holy Flesh is eventually going to incur such a level of The Father's Righteous Fiery Wrath, that it will destroy massive elements of the world and culture we now have as to beggar anything else in which He has expressed His judgment.
Thank you, aMorePerfectUnion, for wading in to contend in the battle for The Faith!
What I am trying to say is—in brief—that the ruse ofpersistently insisting on transubstantiation by priestly mumbling of abracadabra over the Emblems of His Passion TRIVIALIZES The Father’s gift of His Son to rescue ainful condemned humans, and ALL that His apostles accomplished.
That statement is quite ridiculous in view of the words of God in scripture...Who in your religion made that up???
No one has to make Christ present...He is present already...
You poor people...They have conned you into believing you have to go to a Catholic Church where you can point to a wafer on an altar and claim 'Christ is there'...There he is...
With actual Christians, Jesus Christ resides within the body of the Christian...It doesn't matter where we are, Jesus is ALWAYS in us and with us...And you eat this wafer hoping to get what actual Christians already have...
And to think some man could summon or demand Jesus come down from heaven for any purpose is a fool...And the person who claims he brought Jesus down from heaven is a liar...
The muzlim Allah resides in a black rock...The Catholic Jesus resides in a wafer...
“Thank you, aMorePerfectUnion, for wading in to contend in the battle for The Faith!
You as well FRiend.
I just want every Catholic and orthodox person to hear the actual gospel of grace and have eternal life with Him.
Me too. But there is a blockage in communicating effectively with one of them, as compared to, say, Joe Plumber, or an aborigine.
Puts to shame the anxious bench and anyone who thinks we can convert ourselves. God must first speak, which He does as the Scriptures are published. “If they won’t hear Moses and the prophets,” of which it is the office-holders’ duty to study, preach, and administer - “neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”
It could not be literal as the consumption of blood was strictly forbidden by the Law and no observant Jew would ever do that.
or would the spotless, sinless Lamb of God command His followers to break the very Law that He came to fulfill.
Well, I know that you are well aware of this conundrum. It's so, so sad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.