“You’re confusing the reformed faith with the RCC again, Mark. “
I don’t think so. We follow the faith and the words of Jesus Christ, not the faith and the words of Saint Calvin (Peace Be Upon Him).
“The Reformed faith says no man is “worthy” of salvation. It’s the RCC which says you’re good enough and smart enough and pious enough to warrant salvation by all your good works (forgetting that they’re all as ‘filthy rags.’)”
The Reformed is made up of the worthy and the unworthy (actually the ONLY Reformed that I have been able to find are those that are convinced that they are the elect and are going to heaven and everyone else is going to hell). You believe that you are going to heaven. You know it and have the indwelling knowledge that you are. You, Dr. E., believe yourself justified, sanctified and saved. You are now worthy of heaven. True or false?
The Catholics believe that all men have the ability to get to heaven, but some will not. That is true.
“You’re the guys who say men aren’t really fallen; they’ve just been hindered somewhat in their goal of perfecting themselves through mystical incantations and magical elixirs and ceremonial rituals. “
Snicker. The Reformed say that the magical Holy Spirit drops out of the sky like a leopard out of the trees, kidnaps and changes the individual into a robot slave and that robot slave magically and mystically is able to express his newly acquired free will ONLY to do good for God.
We follow the Gospels and what we are commanded to do.
“All the rest of your snide remarks about Calvin is just more sour grapes.”
Saint Calvin (Peace Be Upon Him) was a nasty, evil, brutish man who ordered executions, banishments and ran Geneva with an iron fist.
Calvinists refused to recognize the subordination of church to state, or the right of any government—king, parliament, or civic magistracy—to lay down laws for religion. On the contrary, they insisted that true Christians, the elect or godly, should Christianize the state. They wished to remake society itself into the image of a religious community.
They see themselves as the elect chosen by God to rule over all others. Oddly the Calvinist style theological democracy is best illustrated today by the Islamic Republic of Iran, a police state.
God, being Almighty, knew and willed in advance all things that happened, including the way in which every life would turn out. He knew and willed, from all eternity, that some were saved and some were damned. Calvin, a severe critic of human nature, felt that those who had grace were relatively few. They were the “elect,” the “godly,” the little band chosen without merit of their own, from all eternity, for salvation.
A person could feel in his own mind that he was among the saved, God’s chosen few, if throughout all trials and temptations he persisted in a saintly life. Thus the idea of predestination, of God’s omnipotence, instead of turning to fatalism and resignation, became a challenge to unrelenting effort, a sense of burning conviction, a conviction of being on the side of that Almighty Power which must in the end be everlastingly triumphant. It was the most resolute spirits that were attracted to Calvinism. Calvinists, in all countries, were militant, uncompromising, perfectionist—or Puritan, as they were called first in England and later in America.
Calvinism was far from democratic in any modern sense, being rather of an almost aristocratic outlook, in that those who sensed themselves to be God’s chosen few felt free to dictate to the common run of mankind.
Naturally, the people of Geneva believed that they had thrown away one church only to see it replaced by an identical twin; in particular, they saw Calvin’s reforms as imposing a new form of papacy on the people, only with different names and different people. So the Genevans tossed him out. In early 1538, Calvin and the Protestant reformers were exiled from Geneva. Calvin, for his part, moved to Strasbourg where he began writing commentaries on the Bible and finished his massive account of Protestant doctrine, The Institutes of the Christian Church.
Calvin’s commentaries are almost endless, but within these commentaries he developed all the central principles of Calvinism in his strict readings of the Old and New Testaments. The purpose of commentaries in Western literary tradition was to explain both the literary technique and the difficult passages in literary and historical works. Calvin wrote commentaries to ostensibly explain scriptural writings, but in reality he, like theologians before him, used the commentaries to argue for his own theology as he believed was present in scriptural writings. They are less an explanation of the Bible than a piece by piece construction of his theological, social, and political philosophy. In 1540 a new crop of city officials in Geneva invited Calvin back to the city.
As soon as he arrived he set about revolutionizing Genevan society. His most important innovation was the incorporation of the church into city government; he immediately helped to restructure municipal government so that clergy would be involved in municipal decisions, particularly in disciplining the populace. He imposed a hierarchy on the Genevan church and began a series of statute reforms to impose a strict and uncompromising moral code on the city.
I can definitely see John Calvin (Peace Be Upon Him) in a turban and robes on a camel.
“Where does Scripture talk about any man as a “servant of the servants” who impiously puts himself between God and men? Jesus Christ is the only mediator, Mark. The only one.”
John 13:
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5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.
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He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
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Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”
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Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
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Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
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Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed 6 has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.”
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For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
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So when he had washed their feet (and) put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?
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You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.
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If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.
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I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.
These are the servants of God. They have been instructed. We are also instructed. Do you wash others’ feet, in a spiritual sense? How about a physical sense?
Calvin replaced the Catholic bishop of Geneva with himself, as the Reformed Pope. Calvin was no servant. He was the master of his domain. Calvin the sinner? Calvin had no need of sin except to promulgate his sophomoric and senseless elitist club. He was only one of many heretics to claim that the road to Heaven stopped at his front door. The Catholics have never said that; we only have the faith which Jesus gave us, not Marcion.
That's your error, Mark. You equate the pope with God. You blasphemously state priests are "another Christ."
So who is the "servant of servants?" Jesus or your pope?
All your sloppy slurs against Calvin are meaningless. Calvin was just a man, not "another Christ." But his "Institutes of the Christian Relgion" and his Biblical Commentaries stand as witness to the fact every line he wrote, every thought he held, every word he spoke was Scripturally-based.
If only the RCC could follow his lead.
Calvinists refused to recognize the subordination of church to state, or the right of any government—king, parliament, or civic magistracy—to lay down laws for religion. On the contrary, they insisted that true Christians, the elect or godly, should Christianize the state. They wished to remake society itself into the image of a religious community.
You have your history confused. Calvin was the first to articulate a separation of church and state, but not so that the church was subordinate to the state, just separate. Unlike Rome, God forbid, where the church rules over the state. Calvin began with the presupposition that it is preferrable that the government should be run by God-fearing men. Do you disagree with that belief?
(The Reformed believe that) God, being Almighty, knew and willed in advance all things that happened, including the way in which every life would turn out.
Does God not know "in advance" all things that will happen? Is the will of God thwarted by men or happenstance or chance? Does anything happen in this life that God does not have ultimate control of?
Do you not realize how you are defining down God into a totem pole?
And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree? He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:18-20"They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
You believe that you are going to heaven. You know it and have the indwelling knowledge that you are. You, Dr. E., believe yourself justified, sanctified and saved. You are now worthy of heaven. True or false?
No one is "worthy of heaven" except Jesus Christ. And thankfully, through His obedience, His justification, His sacrifice, His atonement, His redemption, I am justified, am being sanctified and thus, I have been saved.
I believe the words of Jesus Christ.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
The main difference between us, Mark, is that I believe the Holy Spirit guides God's family unerringly, while every time you make reference to the Holy Spirit, it's in dismissive ridicule.
And lately I've come to wonder if this is what Jesus means by "blaspheme against the Holy Ghost."
But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." -- Mark 3:28-29"Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: