Posted on 02/26/2011 1:52:09 PM PST by Dr. Eckleburg
"Grace is not a reward for faith; faith is the result of grace." - John Blanchard
"Saving faith is not a native product of the human heart, but is a spiritual grace communicated from on High." - A.W. Pink, http://bit.ly/drXWnO
"It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ.... It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not int he act of faith or the attitude of faith or in the nature of faith, but in the object of faith." - B. B. Warfield
Justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. This is the article by which the church stands or falls...There is no gospel except that of Christ's substitution in our place whereby God imputed to him our sin and imputed to us his righteousness. Because he bore our judgment, we now walk in his grace as those who are forever pardoned, accepted and adopted as God's children. There is no basis for our acceptance before God except in Christ's saving work, not in our patriotism, churchly devotion or moral decency. The gospel declares what God has done for us in Christ. It is not about what we can do to reach him. We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect justice. We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church. - Cambridge Declaration
Faith itself is man's act or work and is thereby excluded from being any part of his justifying righteousness. It is one thing to be justified by faith merely as an instrument by which man receives the righteousness of Christ, and another to be justified FOR faith as an act or work of the law. If a sinner, then, relies on his actings of faith or works of obedience to any of the commands of the law for a title to eternal life, he seeks to be justified by works of the law as much as if his works were perfect. If he depends either in whole or in part, on his faith and repentance for a right to any promised blessing, he thereby so annexes that promise to the commands to believe and repent as to form them for himself into a covenant of works. Building his confidence before God upon his faith, repentance and other acts of obedience, he places them in Christ's stead as his grounds of right to the promise and so he demonstrates himself to be of the works of the law and so be under the curse." Galatians 3:10 - John Colquhoun (A Treatise on Law and the Gospel)
How would you teach your son to venerate Mary but worship God?
Son when you venerate Mary do not do this?
Son when you worship God do that
What is the practical difference that you can explain to a child,
See what is in your heart really means nothing..pagans believed they were worshiping the true gods.. what you think you are doing makes little difference to God ..that is why He stressed physical things
Exd 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;
He did not say worship me in your heart and what ever you do before other gods is fine
I am not a Catholic. I am a conservative, biblical-Christian Methodist. It’s possible there’s a misconception someplace.
You will discover, if you reread your post to which I responded, that I was simply agreeing with what you had said. It doesn’t really matter. I have no desire to aggravate you in any way.
Consider the subject dropped.
That's what I thought he was saying, too. He's being awfully prickly with me, isn't he?
LOL!
stfassisi:
Thanks for the kind words and thanks for reading my post. I quickly skimed the article you linked and the Introduction sure caught my attention in that it suggests that many Protestant Groups today are stating that Christ assumed a fallen human nature!!. Yikes, that totally goes against the theology of St. Paul that Christ was the 2nd/New Adam which is to say that Christ in his Human Nature reveals to us the true image that God originally created in Man before the Fall.
In addition, a theology of Christ assuming a “fallen Human nature” seems to me to be the genesis of this doctrine of the atonement making headway in certain Protestant groups that on the Cross, God “poured out his wrath and Anger on Christ”. That is a doctrine of the atonement that is nonsense and in fact makes the Father into a God that hates the Son and thus given the Father and Son are both Divine Persons within the Holy Trinity, it makes God hate and thus can’t be reconciled with the orthodox Doctrine of the Holy Trinity in that God is “Love” which says who God is with respect to His Nature, that is to say the Trinity is a community of Love among the Persons of the Trinity.
Just a question, do you know if the issue the author is raising with respect to some Protestant groups claiming that Christ assumed a fallen nature is also impacting their doctrine of the atonement as I suggested above.
thanks again for the link.
“How would you teach your son to venerate Mary but worship God?
Son when you venerate Mary do not do this?
Son when you worship God do that”
I would say son, don’t worship Mary, she is not God. Son, only God is worthy of worship. Of course, he already knows this. He’s not stupid.
Are you telling me that God does not know what is in my heart but has to physically see something in order to have a clue what I’m doing?
“He did not say worship me in your heart and what ever you do before other gods is fine.”
Mary is not a god. Statues are not gods. The saints are not gods. Pictures are not gods. The fish my son carved for me is not a god. I’m also not worshiping any of the mentioned items.
Mom, I never thought of you as being someone whom I would say was ever disingenuous, but either you are now or one or the other of us doesn't speak English. I've explained, Mom what I as a member of The Church see as the difference. If, as a Western protestant you can't see that distinction any more than a Mohammedan can, I'll simply have to leave it there. My people lived under the heel of Mohammedan iconoclasts for 400 years, I can survive here on FR for a few years with the nonsense of Western versions of the same.
I did not ask about a prayer.. I asked the difference between veneration and worship
Ah, no. But since the incarnation, there is no chance that we Christians will create a false idol of a god, since mankind has seen God in the flesh. As for the remainder of your verses, does your version of protestantism deny distinctions among the hypostasia of the Trinity? If not, I fail to see the point. If it does, or if it denies the Trinity as described in the Creed, then it teaches heresy.
Ah, no. But since the incarnation, there is no chance that we Christians will create a false idol of a god, since mankind has seen God in the flesh.
As for the remainder of your verses, does your version of protestantism deny distinctions among the hypostasia of the Trinity? If not, I fail to see the point. If it does, or if it denies the Trinity as described in the Creed, then it teaches heresy.
That does not explain the difference.. it says do not worship, how would he know if he was worshipping or venerating ?How would YOU know what he was doing??
Are you telling me that God does not know what is in my heart but has to physically see something in order to have a clue what I’m doing?
I am saying so far NO ONE has explained the difference between worship and veneration. .all I have heard is " I worship only God" but no clarification of the difference.. Is the entire difference in what YOU say it is or what God says it is??
I remember once in my RC days saying to someone.."oh they just do not understand that we venerate Mary not worship her".. LOL the joke was on me.. because then or now I could not really articulate the difference ,...because in reality the only difference is in the word I used.. not one thing in practice..
So they beat them, then they joined them ... interesting
There is little doubt that she would have been proficient in Greek. Americans are pretty unique in history for being monolinguistic.
Well then, if, you were in fact a Catholic, then you were poorly catechized and what a shame that you did not take it upon yourself to find out the difference yourself.
Worship: to God alone. Adoration, reverence.
Veneration: respect, deep admiration.
From the dictionary.
Exd 20:3 ¶ Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exd 20:4 ¶ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth:
Exd 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;
gods ='elohiym
1) (plural) a) rulers, judges
b) divine ones
c) angels
d) gods
2) (plural intensive - singular meaning)
a) god, goddess
b) godlike one
c) works or special possessions of God
d) the (true) God
e) God
This is a pretty broad word that encompasses may things beside a specific false god like the mormons have.. anything or anyone we bow to or pray to or serve is a false god.. and yes that includes Mary
We former Catholics know what the church teaches and practices. We know what is clear in Catholic writings and teachings.
We've posted it enough. Catholics pray TO Mary FOR things and TO saints FOR things.
Catholics ask for favors from saints and Mary and the canned prayers can EASILY be found on the web.
Classification Protestant
Theology Reformed Evangelical
Governance Presbyterian
Origin June 11, 1936
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Separated from Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
Separations Bible Presbyterian Church
Congregations 255
Members 29,421
(ministers: 485
communicants: 21,123
non-communicants: 7,813)
Statistics for 2009[1]
Well son of a gun. We have here a church founded by men. Not Christ, not God, and not growing.
Had she been adequately Catechized and truly understood the Catechism of the Church and its dogma she would most likely be a staunch Catholic today. Instead she has been filled with lies about the Church and has no ability to recognize them.
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