God inspired the writers to do THE BEST THAT THEY COULD??? :) Oh my goodness. So God's standard for His all-time written revelation to His beloved children is: "the best that man can do". LOL! No wonder the Church's interpretation of the Bible bears little resemblance to the text. The text was simply man's best effort, riddled with errors. The men of the Church had to ride in on white horses and say what God REALLY meant. I'm almost speechless, Mark. :) Considering many, many comments on this thread I don't think I have ever seen the Bible itself take such a beating ...... BY CHRISTIANS! :)
Martin Luther, inspired Scriptural Vandal, chopped some out and was prepared to eliminate most of it, resurrecting the Marcionist heresies which still prevail to this day amongst many of the Protestants.
Luther was not inspired. No one on my side thinks that. His "chopping" consisted of moving the Apocrypha to an appendix. In response to that, the Church finally said that maybe they should get around to officially recognizing the Apocrypha as scripture, which they had refused to do for about 1100 years. And of course Luther was not the first by any means to disavow the Apocrypha as inspired, St. Jerome for example. There were others.
Christ had to go through death on the Cross and Resurrection, certainly. Why do you guys think that we minimize it? Remember that we’re the ones with the Crucifixes. We are reminded of it all the time.
I think Apostolics minimize Christ on the cross because not a single person ever entered Heaven just because Jesus gave His life for us. It certainly helped and made it possible, but it accomplished nothing in totality regarding completed salvation. For you guys, His death was necessary but not sufficient to enter Heaven.
The problem I have with the Crucifix is that it strongly reinforces the image we have of you all re-sacrificing Jesus over and over again during the Eucharist. Our cross is empty because He is risen.
You've been here that long and you STILL aren't getting it?
Christ died for ALL men, FK. EVERYONE. NO EXCEPTIONS. Even Roman Catholics. Even atheists. And yes, even Jean Calvin. Yet, EVERYONE who has died is not in heaven. Can I make that any more clear? IF Christ died for ALL men AND Christ's death was enough to open heaven to ALL men regardless of what these men did in their lives, then hell would be empty. Common sense dictates that man is then judged, correct? Oh, and the Bible says that, as well. OVER AND OVER AGAIN! WOW! This is not a "minimizing" of Christ on the cross.
And WHICH Catholic has said that Christ's death was "NECESSARY"? That would be YOU that says that on numerous occasions. We say it was "fitting", not necessary.
Regards
Then why do different writers writing about the same thing use different words, and different emphases?
There were no golden tablets found underground; the Holy Spirit didn’t frogmarch the writers of the Bible over to the table and refuse to let them up until they had written exactly what the Holy Spirit dictated to them. Oral tradition, word of mouth.
I understand that you guys don’t have a Church, Tradition, the Magisterium or a history that goes back to Christ. You only have words in a Book. It doesn’t matter that the words have changed. It doesn’t matter that the KJV is often different from the NAB, or that the new gender-neutral Bible contradicts both.
You people cling onto a Bible, whichever Bible, splitting hairs and vehemently holding onto odd translations and single words, regardless of whether or not the translation is accurate or even intended.
“I think Apostolics minimize Christ on the cross because not a single person ever entered Heaven just because Jesus gave His life for us. It certainly helped and made it possible, but it accomplished nothing in totality regarding completed salvation. For you guys, His death was necessary but not sufficient to enter Heaven.
The problem I have with the Crucifix is that it strongly reinforces the image we have of you all re-sacrificing Jesus over and over again during the Eucharist. Our cross is empty because He is risen.”
Do you see the contradictions? An empty Cross is a tad antiseptic. I liken it to the person buying meat in a supermarket in an antiseptic pink or white tray with plastic wrap over it versus actually seeing the butchering process or the processing after a hunt. We understand and appreciate as much as is humanly possible the process that Christ went through.
I don’t believe that a Protestant could have even come close to producing the movie The Passion of The Christ because the mindset is so different. We are humbled by the sacrifice that the Lord went through for us. By the magnitude. We understand that what He went through was too much, too unbearable, too humiliating and too painful for any man to take. We understand that with His Passion, the greatest event in Creation, He has ransomed all men; since it took everything to redeem man, and He gave everything, that man is redeemed.
Yes, your cross is empty. I think that it is an indicator of the emotion of the theologies that Protestants tend to follow.