Posted on 08/29/2009 8:14:40 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Members of the Aetherius Society from as far afield as Australia and Ghana joined the pilgrimage to the Old Man of Coniston.
They believe the mountain is one of 19 across the world which have been “charged” with spiritual energy by extra-terrestrials from Venus and Mars.
Members of the society say their founder, George King, was able to contact religious figure heads – including Jesus, Buddha and Krishna – who they believe to be aliens. He transmitted the energy from their messages of peace to the mountains in the 1950s.
Society member David Trimble, 70, who was among those who joined the trek, hailed the event as a great success, in spite of difficult weather conditions.
He said: “It was absolutely fantastic. We divided into three prayer teams – one at the bottom, one two thirds of the way up and one right at the top. We prayed for world peace and sent energy out to all the trouble spots of the world including Iraq, Iran and the Sudan.”
According to society members, the 2,635ft Old Man was “charged” by Dr King in December 1958. Since then, it has been a place of biannual pilgrimage for society members, who hope to use the energy to alleviate world suffering.
Mr Trimble, who recently moved from Dalston to Barnsley, added: “These alien beings are trying to help mankind and, in terms of the mountains, we can generate an enormous amount of power. We’ve literally been able to move mountains and stop wars.”
The pilgrimage was led by Mervyn Smith, a former Coniston resident who now lives in London and has climbed the fell more than 500 times before.
At the same time, similar meetings were held at other “charged” mountains around the world.
***You can’t say because by saying the Western or Eastern Church is the “one” “true” “church” you are invalidating the other “one” “true” “church”.***
That is because there is only one true Church - the Catholic Church. The Eastern wing is the four Oriental / African bishoprics and the Western wing is the Latin bishopric. The bishops are considered equals, by the way, with the Bishop of Rome the first amongst equals. Each bishop has jurisdiction over his own bishopric, which is amounts for some of the puzzlement by non Catholics as to how theological or other Church business is conducted.
***“Then you do not know.”
What do you mean?***
If I ask you how you know and you answer that you believe, then you do not know - you believe. And that is something else entirely.
***“With respect, I would say not. Your dismissal of Matthew is most telling.”
I do no such thing. I instead dismiss false interpretations of Matthew.***
If you check back on your posts, my quotes of Matthew were seemingly dismissed, rather than discussed as to interpretation.
***“There really isn’t much of one.”
I thought it was going well as you presented an argument instead of just dismissing mine. Now though it is just the “we are the one true church” mantra. Even so, getting to hear your previous argument had given me the insight I was looking for.***
Again, I must say that many of your posts, well intentioned as they are, are a little shy on proofs. There are statements, to be sure, but Scriptural or other proofs to back them up help in the debating process.
I will respond in due time. But I think it would be best for you to lay out your position from the Bible alone. I’m afraid we will get side-tracked rather than being able to see how you come to your conclusions.
Also I do not want us to get side-tracked from your as of yet unproven thesis regarding modern Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy. I’m still waiting to see how you make that argument from Scripture alone.
It is only fair as I have already done this on my end.
Actually, you haven’t. Only by proxy have you posted the argument of others. I like folks who can think and reason for themselves.
***I just first want to say that I really appreciate you taking the time to post this to me. I have prayerfully sat with it to find as much as I can from it. Thank you very much for providing this information and insight.***
I do my best in my own clumsy way; I have irritated as many people as I have express gratitude. It is not my intent to offend; yet I sometimes do so.
***What I see here is that God gives you an unknown number of unknown tasks to do, and if you do not do them He will damn you, even though you are a Christian. To know if you have done all the tasks you are to do you listen to the Holy Spirit.***
Well, let’s take that point for point.
God gives us tasks, just as He did the stewards, sure. But these are not the only things that we must do. I believe that God gives us opportunities all around us. Let us say that on a fine Saturday, you may have an opportunity to serve in the local soup kitchen, you may also have an opportunity to drive some old folks to a state park for an outing, and you may have the opportunity to cut your church’s grass and trim the bushes.
I don’t believe that it necessarily matters which one you do as long as you do it with joy in your heart, rather than huddling on a barstool in the local speakeasy until closing time instead. 1 Corinithians 13:
13
5 So faith, hope, charity remain, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
You may ask yourself how charitable are you? That little monologue on helping others does not lend itself to providing evidence of Christian charity.
***“...Peter was the first among equals of the Apostles.”
“Interesting, since Jesus is talking specifically to Peter and not the other Apostles.”
“The laying on of hands to choose the next office holders occurs throughout Acts and the Epistles.”
I can understand now where the Peter facination came from.***
Read through the Gospels and Acts and separate out all the references to Peter and you may be surprised at the prominence and the special attention paid to him by Jesus and the deference by the other Apostles.
***“...those who do not understand the Gospel of Christ are obviously not Christian.”
“It is only for the clergy who have been instructed.”
“The hubris of personal interpretation gets in the way of serving God.”
What I see here is that agreeing with the clergy, who have been instructed by previous clergy, is required by God or He will damn you.***
We do not believe that God damns any man; we believe that He confirms their decision. With that said, we have 2000 years of watching people drift away from Christ through personal interpretations of their own. We have the words of Paul that say that the Church (not individual men, not Scripture) is the foundation and pillar of truth. We have Christ that instructs men to go to the Church. We have Acts that tells us of the eunuch that cannot understand Scripture until the Church gives that understanding to him.
The best of individual men who spurn the Church’s interpretation doom themselves. Where is Nestorius? Where is Origen? Where is Montanus? Where is Tertullian?
***“If you claim that God dictated the Bible, then the Bible itself calls you wrong. Luke and Revelation are most explicit. The letters from the bishops to their flocks are also not God-breathed. They are letters from men to men.”
What I see here is that the Words of Christ are the only God-breathed part of the Bible. Everything else is uninspired.***
Never said that. The Word of God is Jesus; the word of God is Scripture. The problem is that while God may have breathed the words, it is fallible men that have taken it down. How do you explain the four different stories of Resurrection Sunday if God dictated every word and the four Gospel writers were instruments only?
No. They were inspired to write, but inspiration means just that. Inspired or moved to do something. It does not mean transcript.
***“Do you think of Jesus as a mere man?”
Christ is a mere man, and He is also God.***
One must be very careful else one may easily turn down the wrong road. I will quote the Catechism:
III. TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN
464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.
During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.
465 The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God’s Son “come in the flesh”.87 But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is “begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father”, and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God “came to be from things that were not” and that he was “from another substance” than that of the Father.88
466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.”89 Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”90
467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin”. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.91
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.92
468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.”93 Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: “He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity.”94
469 The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:
“What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed”, sings the Roman Liturgy.95 And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: “O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!”96
Jesus is not mere in any sense of the word. :)
***“Why not call it the Catholic Church?”
Some people say that “Catholic” means “Universal” which alludes to Christ saying that He came “for all”. So when some people say the phrase “Catholic Church” they are saying “the Body of Christ” or “Christians”.***
Some people say almost anything. Christ did come for all men. It is men who reject Him; He rejects nobody.
***I don’t accept your premise that what you call the “Catholic Church” is what Christ called the Body of Christ. It is certainly not the “one true Church”.***
Yet Scripture and the Church Fathers say it is. Church history and documentation says it is. Lots of evidence which amount to proofs. Do you have evidence for your statements?
***It’s like saying the Church of Scientology is the one true Christian church because it has the word “church” in it. Then going through the Bible and every time you see a reference to “the Church” you say that the Word is talking about Scientology.***
Scientology was begun by L. Ron Hubbard about 50 years ago. Therefore it is not Biblical. I can make that same statement about other churches as well. This document is common enough that I’ll use it without attribution:
If you are a Lutheran , your denomination was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk of the Catholic Church, in the year 1517.
If you belong to the Church of England, your denomination was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to re-marry. The Church of England separated itself from the Catholic Church under Henry VIII but it didn’t actually become a new Protestant religion until the reign of his son, Edward VI.
If you are a Presbyterian, your denomination was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the year 1560.
If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your denomination was an offshoot of the Church of England founded by Samuel Seabury in the American colonies in the 17th century.
If your are a Congregationalist, your denomination was originated by Robert Browne in Holland in 1582.
If you are a Methodist, your denomination was launched by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.
If you are LDS or “Mormon” (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Joseph Smith Jr. started your religion in Fayette, NY, on April 6th, 1830.
If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your denomination to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1605.
If you are of the Dutch Reformed church, you recognize Michaelis Jones as founder, because he originated your denomination in New York in 1628.
If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.
If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion was born and to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.
If you consider yourself a member of one of the Pentecostal churches, your movement began in Topeka, KS (1901) and Los Angeles (1906), in reaction to perceived loss of evangelical fervor among Methodists and others.
If you call yourself a Mennonite, your movement was named after Menno Simons, a Catholic priest for 12 years, who left the Church to join the conservative Anabaptist wing.
The Amish, started by Jacob Amman around 1693, are just one of many different church bodies within the Mennonite community in the U.S.
If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as “Church of the Nazarene”, “Pentecostal Gospel”, “Holiness Church”, “Pilgrim Holiness Church”, “Jehovah’s Witnesses “, your denomination is one of the many thousands of new sects and religions founded by men within the past several hundred years.
If you are Jewish, Abraham became the first Jew when God promised him: “I will make you a great nation...”. Your religion was founded by God in the Jewish calendar year 2049 (1711 BC), over 3700 years ago. God revealed Himself to the Jews through the Prophets and promised to send a Messiah. Jesus Christ, a Jew from the House of David, came to this world as His only begotten Son in fulfilment of the scriptures.
If you are Catholic, your Church was founded in the year 33 A.D. by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
May I ask who founded your church and when?
***I also don’t agree with your interpretation of Scripture that Christ “founded” an organization. You don’t enter the Body of Christ through the doors of a building handing out wafers, you enter through Christ.***
I’m confused. Who hands out wafers through the doors of a building? Can you explain further, please?
But we have Scripture rather labourious pointing the exhaustive process used to teach Christianity to the poor, dumb, provincial and uneducated Apostles by Jesus. That was the creation of the Church; commissioned by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Oh, for extra points, who was the first man to perform a miracle, and who was the leader of the Apostles at Pentecost? As a matter of fact, who was the only one (after Jesus was taken up) identified as speaking and in command of the Apostles for the first six chapters of Acts?
“He actually brought me to the Bible.”
Oh that’s interesting. For me it was kind of the opposite, as the Bible brought me to Scriptural studies.
“So, IOW, you haven’t done the work yourself.”
I brought documentation to my argument. Just because you aren’t able to do that doesn’t mean I’m somehow wrong. In fact, it means that your argument has yet to be made. For example, you said that the Book of Revelation took place in 70AD, but you haven’t produced anything that explains the two witnesses, Wormwood, the stinging creatures, the mountain that falls into the sea, etc.
“Set aside Mr. Koenig for a while and just try using the Bible. That what my friend taught me.”
Maybe the issue is that you haven’t read that site. It is a line by line Scriptural analysis. In other words, it *features* the Bible. Now I read the Book first, then I did a ton of research into what it meant. I found that the site I gave you is the best study on this Scripture I could so far find.
Just to clarify, I read the Book first. My first time through it I realized that it was talking about all the things I found on that site later. Yep, without ever having ever read anything about the Rapture, I saw it plain as day my first time reading Revelation.
“Are you challenging the truth of the things I have stated about myself?”
LOL. What you said was: “I used to be a futurist when I was an immature Christian and not very proficient with the things of God and interpreting the Bible.”
It seems to imply that you believe that people who subscribe to theology you label as “futurist” are immature and non-proficient in matters of Christianity and Bible study.
On second look, it still seems like an absurdly hidden ipse dixit and Appeal to Ridicule. Or maybe you just felt you were immature and non-proficient back in the day and, completely unrelatedly mind you, around that time you also got into what you call futurist. If that’s the case, then I hope that your futurism studies helped you get some maturity and Bible skills.
“True, the question is, “which ones?”
I will be happy to prepare a list for you, in addition to the website I gave you that already lists them all, just as soon as you provide even a bare outline to who the two witnesses where, the stinging creatures were, Wormwood was, the mountain that fell into the sea was, a third of the stars falling out of the sky was, etc. in 70AD.
“Sounds like the perfect opportunity for you to use the Bible and answer the question for yourself, without the help of Mr. Koenig or anyone else.”
If you can’t do it for your 70AD theory you should just admit it and concede. I have done it with what I believe, it is still your turn.
“Which, BTW, I’m still waiting for you to do with the matter of proving that modern Israel is the fulfillment of specific biblical prophecies. You seem to now be avoiding the issue.”
That is also in the site I sent you. I offered to post it here but you didn’t respond. It is very long and may make the thread unwieldy.
“If you do it is just further confirmation that you just don’t get it.”
This sentence contains an opinion, but nothing else...
You said that you believe that Christ is currently reigning.
What do you think he's doing right now, playing pinball in the rec room?
A lot of prophesies in Revelation have to happen before that.
If and only if the Apocalypse is a linear narrative describing a seven year period immediately before the 2nd coming.
“BTW, Dr. Vern Poythress...”Who is *he* and why should *I* read him instead of... Just kidding.
Professor at Westminster Seminary, Philadephia. I picked his because he did put his book up on his web site.
BTW, what are preterists?
You got some reading to do. Preterism:
reterism is a variant of Christian eschatology which holds that some or all of the biblical prophecies concerning the Last Days or End Times refer to events which already happened in the first century after Christ's birth.
There are variants of it that fall outside Christian orthodoxy.
I am lead by your post to believe that what you are calling dispensationalism, what these churches are calling dispensationalism, and what my argument has been are two different things....
So God is still going to give what He promised to Israel? ..namely the land of Israel and the highest prosperity on Earth.. But He is going to do this by giving it to the Body of Christ? ..namely a group that as of right now does not contain even a fraction of the bloodline? If this is going to work without replacement, then the bloodline is going to have to go through a mass conversion to Christianity. This is actually prophesied in the Book of Revelation and it starts with a massive migration of the bloodline back to Israel... which is really happening now and has been in the news. These events are end times markers. And it is really all I have been saying. Israel is an end time marker. Remember the original comment I made that started the debate?
Sure the heck sounds like dispensationalism. All the markers are there.
“That seems to be a claim that I’m failing to grasp from the Bible. Can you be more specific?”
I’m not claiming that at all! I just was looking for your beliefs on whether Christ is reigning in the 1000 years right now. And if so then what happened in 70AD that fulfilled the resurrection of the saints.
It’s like pulling teeth but I am trying to get even one answer to what happened in 70AD that describes Wormwood, the mountain into the sea, the two witnesses, the resurrection, etc. You have given your position but haven’t explained it at all.
Well, you were the one that said it, and I have never made the claim. I said that I’m prepared to answer your questions in due time.
It’s like pulling teeth …
Now you know how I feel. It is frustrating to get sent to all these web sites when I just want to hear you make the case yourself from the Bible. Regurgitating the words of others does not really tell me what you believe.
I'm just trying to keep us (you) on track with the original claims regarding modern Israel. I'm still waiting for you to make the case. Since you are the one that I’m interacting with, it is from you that I would like some direct answers. I’ve been around here long enough to know when folks are trying to divert the discussions from some unpleasant subjects.
I’ll be here when you are ready.
It was a statement of fact, not an argument. I said that I was immature when I adopted those views without sufficient study of the Bible. Are you misinterpreting those words, or merely ascribing a meaning that was not intended?
Now, shall we proceed?
The rapture theory is not in the book of Revelation.
Yep, without ever having ever read anything about the Rapture, I saw it plain as day my first time reading Revelation. --tcThe rapture theory is not in the book of Revelation. --OS
If you think that it is "plain as day", show us where you see it.
And no, I don't think " After this I looked, and beholde, a doore was open in heauen, and the first voyce which I heard, was as it were of a trumpet talking with mee, saying, Come vp hither, and I will shewe thee things which must be done hereafter." is the catching up of the church.
I can affirm what the ecumenical creeds and historic Reformed confessions teach, e.g.,:
Nicene CreedWe believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets. And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
The Belgic Confession
Article 37: About the Final Judgment, the Resurrection of the Flesh and Eternal LifeFinally, we believe, according to the word of God, that when the time predestined by God and unknown to all creatures arrives, and the number of the Elect will be completed, our Lord Jesus Christ is going to return from heaven, bodily and visibly, just as He once ascended there, decorated with consummate Majesty, and He will reveal Himself as a judge of the living and of the dead, having set this old world ablaze with fire and flame in order that He would purify it. Then truly all creatures, so as with men also with women and infants, as many as have thereupon lived, back from the beginning up unto the end of the world, will appear in the presence of this consummate Judge, certainly called forth by the sound of both the Archangel and by the trumpet of God. For all of the previously dead will then rise up from the ground and, by the Spirit, the soul of every one of them, in turn, will be united and joined together with their own body in which they had lived. Again, those who will be living up unto that ultimate day will be transformed in but a moment and a blink of the eye, clearly from corruption into an incorruptible nature. Then the books, certainly the consciences, will be opened up and the dead will be judged according to the things that they did in this world, whether good or bad. In fact, people are then even going to render an account of every idle word that they have spoken, which the world now regards as sport and joke. In short, then all the hypocrisies, and secrets of people, and the things of their hearts, will be openly uncovered in presence of all people, so that, with singular merit, the thought of this is rightly horrible and terrifying to the wicked and reprobate, and truly both most greatly hoped for and also an enormous consolation for the elect. For then their redemption will be made thoroughly obvious, and they will obtain the most pleasant fruits of their labor and pain that have endured in this life; then their innocence will be openly acknowledged by everyone, and they themselves, in turn, will see the terrifying vengeance that the Lord will take upon those whom have tyrannically afflicted them with various torments and molestations in this world. Again, evil people will be convicted by the own testimony of their consciences, and indeed rendered immortal, but in that state so that they will always be tortured eternally in the never-ending fire that has been prepared for the Devil. But on the contrary, the faithful and Elect will truly be given crowns of honor and glory, and the Son of God will confess their name in the presence of God the Father and of the Angels, and every tear will be wiped from their eyes. And so, their cause, which is damned as heresy and wickedness by Magistrates and judges, will then be acknowledged to be the cause of the Son of God. And the Lord will freely reward them with such glory as no person ever can imagine with the mind. Therefore, we wait upon that great day of the Lord with consummate eagerness so that, as happy people, we will most fully acquire and will thoroughly enjoy throughout eternity all of those things promised by God in Jesus Christ the Lord. Apoc. 22:20. Come again Lord Jesus.
I'm curious. What have I written that would make you question me in this area? Have I ever written anything that is not in line with what the Church has historically believed regarding the resurrection, etc.?
“I will respond in due time.”
I hope so, because until you explain who the two witnesses were, etc. in 70AD, then you really have no argument. If you cannot do this then you concede.
People in the Roman Catholic Organization must live in fear that they have not done the unknown amount of unknown tasks that they believe God requires of them lest they be damned by Him.
Christians know they are saved and experience joy every time God decides to use them via the Holy Spirit to perform something for Him. They know it is not required, but is a boon that gives them treasures in heaven.
Members of the RCO do not believe the words of Matthew are God’s Words. They see him as just a sin filled fallen man not at all Inspired through the Holy Spirit to write exactly what God wants him to. If he is not reliable as a messenger of God, then what does it matter what you say his words mean?
Since you only accept the words of Christ in the Bible to be God Breathed, and the rest of the Bible to be simply words of men that are no different than any other books, what would it matter to you what I said about the meaning of Scripture?
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