Posted on 11/01/2009 3:53:11 AM PST by GonzoII
Yes. We're hip. At least I am. We are forgiven. Purgatory doesn't get us forgiveness. It couldn't. Forgiveness can't be "gotten" it's a free gift of God in Christ Jesus (Insert Alleluia here.)(Insert another Alleluia.)(Oh, go ahead, insert another Alleuia -- if you can't be happy about this, you're hopeless.)
The souls in Prugatory know they're forgiven and they rejoice. That's why Dante's Purgatory is such a lovely and happy poem -- he's presenting a lovely and happy doctrine. (Don't believe what you read in the funny papers. Don't e ven believe a fair amount of Catholic sermons. YES it would be WAY better not to go to Purqatory, as going straight to the banana split made with Haagen Daz and homemade hot fudge sauce beats having to eat our vegetables first. But if, as I hope, one day I find myself in Purgatory my first word will be "Alleluia!"
I promise I'll work some more on the eternity thing and on the Purgatory thing. There's got to be a way, not persuade, but to make contact on this.
This post is just an exuberant place holder. Serious thought (maybe -- to the extent, if any, that I am capable of thought) will come later.
From a sermon by John MacArthur:
So that is the principle of looking for the truth. And when you meet someone who has perverted it, deviated from it, added to it, gone beyond it, act wisely...act wisely. And how would you act wisely? Verse 10, “If anyone comes to you,” and they did, this is A with the indicative, a likely condition. It probably happened to this lady, as I’ve said, as to many through the centuries and many even today, and even us as they’ve kind of come into our house through the television and radio and whatever, and sometimes even knocking on the door. “If anyone comes to you and does not bear this teaching....what teaching?...the teaching of Christ, that is about Him by Him, do not receive him into your house.” This is not someone coming to learn from you or you’d never be able to witness to an unbeliever. This is someone coming to teach you lies. Understand the difference? We answer the questions of the ignorant. We answer the questions of those who want to know. We don’t affirm or give a platform to the deceivers. The fastest way to put them out of business is to make sure that you never receive them. If anyone comes to you, I’m not talking about someone ignorant who wants to understand the truth. We’re talking about an apostate lying deceiver looking for a foothold embedded in the fellowship of believers to make money off the unsuspecting while he plies his evil lies. Don’t receive him into your house.
He could have said, “Don’t receive him in your church.” That’s true, but then churches were not the first place they would go. Why? Because churches were protected by what group of men? Elders. And what...what was necessary to be an elder? First Timothy 3, they had to be...end of verse 2...didaktikos, skilled teachers. So you wouldn’t expect a false teacher just to invade a church. He’s not going to get in here. We have elders who are skilled teachers. Titus 1:9, “Elders are able to hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the doctrine and are able both to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.” And they can handle the rebellious men, the empty talkers, and deceivers. That’s what elders and pastors do. So they don’t come to the church. That’s where they ultimately end up, that’s where they’d like to end up. They don’t come there first, they go to the home. They want to get you on your front porch. They want to get you through the television or the radio. They want to find their way to those who are vulnerable. In 2 Timothy 3 and verse 5 it says, “These false teachers have a form of godliness without power.” And verse 6 says, “They enter into households and they captivate weak women.” Hmmm, that’s what they do. They look for the weak and the sympathetic and tender hearted and compassionate and embed themselves there and start their divesting of those people’s resources and the confusion of their minds. Don’t let them in your house. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.” And this doesn’t apply to new Christians, or those who seek a full knowledge of Christ. These people are not learners, they are...what?...teachers, the emissaries of deception.
http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/63-4
We usually say "development" as in "unfolding", but clarification will do.
And just for thoroughness, the sacrifice offered by priests is, in our view, nothing other than the sacrifice by Christ of Christ. It's that eternity thing again.
Understood. I still haven’t found any scriptural authority for saying God is outside of time. The Systematic Theology text our Sunday School class is working thru gets to that chapter next week, I think...should be interesting, since I think the text is wrong.
Ref Purgatory...I’ll look forward to your post. I appreciate the effort that goes in to putting one together. Sometimes time - which we CERTAINLY are in - just doesn’t permit doing all we would wish!
Pretty straightforward Catholic thought, you have an issue with it?
How utterly doctrinaire; "elders" as defined by Protestant doctrine are no more uniform nor universal in judgement than anything else related to reformation theology.
Even so, this is a case of using a hammer on a screw because it is the only tool you own for driving fasteners!
How many elders does it take to make it a sin to use anything but the King James Bible? I promise you I can find plenty, but I can find even MORE that disagree!
Well, Baptists use a free market approach...if you believe X is heresy, go somewhere where it isn’t accepted. However, a part of it is that elders are supposed to be able to refute bad doctrine with good - to teach WHY doctrine X is heresy.
And yes, I’ve been in several congregations where we had to tell someone to get out and stay out...a few for unrepentant sin (adultery) and a couple for teaching heresy (self-proclaimed prophets whose teaching violated God’s word).
I'm THINKING (guessing?) that the problem is multi-faceted and more philosophical than anything else. That is some of the attributes of God are difficult to reconcile with his being in time.
For one thing, as a teaser, time seems to be about measuring motion or change. If everything that is is not changing in any way, how can we say time is passing. And if "before" creation, God is the only "thing that is", is He changing? If not, then no time.
Another way to say it is that time is about things that change, and only creatures change.
When we think not only about a thousand ages being short as the watch that ends the night but also a day's being like a thousand years, we imagine ourselves being able to expand or contract our experience of time. But then WE still change in reaciton to what's around us, what we perceive. So in our imagination we posit a third "time", the short time in which I am as a thousand ages pass, or the other time in which a day is so very long - my eperinece of time as I say, "That was a short time," or "That was a long time."
Further we have to struggle with the thousand ages being like an evening in some respects, but in others, as God sprinkles grace on the mired and slow-moving soul, the complex ALMOST-instant in which the soul turns from doubt to faith, can be imagined as the slow intricate gracious work of God and His angels in the mysterious depths of that soul. So we're going to end up positing an indefinitely (if not infinitely) large array of subjective times for God to operate in as he straightens recalcitrant Mad Dawgs out and keeps them safe and manages the internal economy of the sub-atomic particles in the Magellanic Cloud.
If, on the other hand, we have God outside of time, while the basic notion is incomprehensible, the rest falls easily into place. "Before Abraham was," or, indeed, anything or anyone else, "I AM!" Also during and after ....
Something along those lines.
Yes you did, you just didn't understand it. "Eternal" is outside of time by definition. Without mass (the physics kind) there is no time, and prior to creation, mass did not exist. Therefore, anything not part of creation stands outside of time by definition.
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." - Galatians 2
Or, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14
I'll admit, it seems like there ought to be some clarifying context where your Pope says, "But NO ONE can live like that, so the sacrifice of Jesus is critical, since no one can be justified in the eyes of God by their merit." Apart from that, it is direct contradiction with Jesus Christ himself.
Scriptural citation please. I’m not interested in philosophy, but revelation.
John MacArthur means nothing to me. What did he say that you find relevant?
To live in accordance with the beatitudes is a gift, not an accomplishment.
The rest is not so much of a problem for me. A Buddhist monk undertook a "meritorious" work, to fund a production of the major Buddhist Scriptures. Three times, as he amassed almost enough money to do this great thing, there was a natural disaster, a famine, flood, what have you. Three times he gave up his project and donated the assembled funds for relief.
Now I don't know about the state of his soul, and it's not my business. But I do know that when I undertake some piddly project and it doesn't come out according to my 'vision', I remember that monk, and offer the little I foolishly pretend to have to God. That's certainly God calling me to grace, and using the story of that monk as the stick with which to hit me on the head (which I so sorely and so often need.)
So I envision the "contribute under the influence of grace to the building of this Kingdom.”
I don't see how the monk could have done it without God moving his heart, I don't see how I would know it, and recognize God's prompting me to self-oblation without God moving my heart.
But I DO wish Popes wouldn't say stuff like that some times, I confess ...
The role of elders in dealing with heresy, which is what I thought you said the Magisterium would be required to do.
I didn’t quote him because I thought you would be impressed by his name, but because he accurately cites the scriptures involved. Perhaps you could try reading it again...
Seriously, it's not so much that we keep forgetting that a lot of people think we deny the grace of God, though that's part of it, as that we don't always frame our remarks with that audience in mind.
Genesis 1:1. And you're not interested in revelation, either. It was just given to you, and you dismissed it.
Here's some Sunday School discussion for you:
Dan 2:21 "And He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings and setteth up kings. He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. 22 He revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him."
Acts 17: 26 "And He hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."
Rom 11: 36 "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen."
Acts 1: 7 "And He said unto them, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power. "
Regards.
No, it wasn’t. You ASSUME creation is the start of time, then cite creation as proof God is outside of time.
You cannot assume a proof.
Here is a scriptural citation:
“But when this priest [Jesus] had offered [past tense] for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down [past tense]at the right hand of God. Since that time [present tense] he waits [for a future event] for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made [past tense] perfect forever those who are being made holy.” - Hebrews 10
Hmmm...it shows God inside of time. Now, God could have said He is outside of time - that time is not a part of who He is - but God does not. Instead, He had Jesus, having done one thing, now waiting for another to happen.
“And you’re not interested in revelation, either.”
Poor taste.
The usual line is that the OT reasing is selected to do a kind of "compare and contrast" with the Gospel reading, while the other NT reading is sometimes chosen that way and sometimes chosen for reasons which sure escape me. But the OT and Gospel present a theme, and usually the selection from the Psalms resonates with that theme.
During Eastertide (from Easter to Pentecost) instead of an OT reading the eading is from Acts, usually from the address Peter gave on the first Pentecost.
Today, All Saints, was a "solemnity" (pronounced solemnididdy)(well, it is if you're under 6 years old), one of the few special days which takes precedence of a Sunday. So the readings for today were
Rev 7:2-4,9-14
Ps 24:1-6
I John 3:1-3,
and the Beatitudes from Matthew.
So you can see how all the readings pick up the theme of the promise and nature of holiness for all of us.
I hope that's useful and responsive.
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