Posted on 06/13/2012 2:59:02 PM PDT by Gamecock
In my experience with those who wrestle with conversion to Roman Catholicism—at least those who have professed faith in the gospel, the driving theological issue is authority. How can I be certain that what I believe is true? The gospel of free grace through the justification of sinners in Christ alone moves to the back seat. Instead of the horse, it becomes the cart. Adjustments are made in their understanding of the gospel after accepting Rome’s arguments against sola scriptura. I address these remarks to friends struggling with that issue.
Reformation Christians can agree with Augustine when he said that he would never have known the truth of God’s Word apart from the catholic church. As the minister of salvation, the church is the context and means through which we come to faith and are kept in the faith to the end. When Philip found an Ethiopian treasury secretary returning from Jerusalem reading Isaiah 53, he inquired, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” the official replied, “unless someone guides me?” (Ac 8:30-31). Explaining the passage in the light of its fulfillment in Christ, Philip baptized the man who then “went on his way rejoicing” (v 39).
Philip did not have to be infallible; he only had to communicate with sufficient truth and clarity the infallible Word.
For many, this kind of certainty, based on a text, is not adequate. We have to know—really know—that what we believe is an infallible interpretation of an ultimate authority. The churches of the Reformation confess that even though some passages are more difficult to understand, the basic narratives, doctrines and commands of Scripture—especially the message of Christ as that unfolds from Genesis to Revelation—is so clearly evident that even the unlearned can grasp it.
For the Reformers, sola scriptura did not mean that the church and its official summaries of Scripture (creeds, confessions, catechisms, and decisions in wider assemblies) had no authority. Rather, it meant that their ministerial authority was dependent entirely on the magisterial authority of Scripture. Scripture is the master; the church is the minister.
The following theses summarize some of the issues that people should wrestle with before embracing a Roman Catholic perspective on authority.
1. The Reformers did not separate sola scriptura (by Scripture alone) from solo Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), sola fide (through faith alone). As Herman Bavinck said, “Faith in Scripture rises or falls with faith in Christ.” Revealed from heaven, the gospel message itself (Christ as the central content of Scripture) is as much the basis for the Bible’s authority as the fact that it comes from the Father through the inspiration of the Spirit. Jesus Christ, raised on the third day, certified his divine authority. Furthermore, he credited the Old Testament writings as “scripture,” equating the words of the prophets with the very word of God himself and commissioned his apostles to speak authoritatively in his name. Their words are his words; those who receive them also receive the Son and the Father. So Scripture is the authoritative Word of God because it comes from the unerring Father, concerning the Son, in the power of the Spirit. Neither the authority of the Bible nor that of the church can stand apart from the truth of Christ as he is clothed in his gospel.2. Every covenant is contained in a canon (like a constitution). The biblical canon is the norm for the history of God’s saving purposes in Christ under the old and new covenants. The Old Testament canon closed with the end of the prophetic era, so that Jesus could mark a sharp division between Scripture and the traditions of the rabbis (Mk 7:8). The New Testament canon was closed at the end of the apostolic era, so that even during that era the Apostle Paul could warn the Corinthians against the “super-apostles” by urging, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Co 4:6). While the apostles were living, the churches were to “maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you” (1 Co 11:2), “…either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Th 2:15). There were indeed written and unwritten traditions in the apostolic church, but only those that eventually found their way by the Spirit’s guidance into the New Testament are now for us the apostolic canon. The apostles (extraordinary ministers) laid the foundation and after them workers (ordinary ministers) build on that foundation (1 Co 3:10). The apostles could appeal to their own eye-witness, direct, and immediate vocation given to them by Christ, while they instructed ordinary pastors (like Timothy) to deliver to others what they had received from the apostles. As Calvin noted, Rome and the Anabaptists were ironically similar in that they affirmed a continuing apostolic office. In this way, both in effect made God’s Word subordinate to the supposedly inspired prophets and teachers of today.
3. Just as the extraordinary office of prophets and apostles is qualitatively distinct from that of ordinary ministers, the constitution (Scripture) is qualitatively distinct from the Spirit-illumined but non-inspired courts (tradition) that interpret it. Thus, Scripture is magisterial in its authority, while the church’s tradition of interpretation is ministerial.
4. To accept these theses is to embrace sola scriptura, as the Reformation understood it.
5. This is precisely the view that we find in the church fathers. First, it is clear enough from their descriptions (e.g., the account in Eusebius) that the fathers did not create the canon but received and acknowledged it. (Even Peter acknowledged Paul’s writings as “Scripture” in 2 Peter 3:16, even though Paul clearly says in Galatians that he did not receive his gospel from or seek first the approval of any of the apostles, since he received it directly from Christ.) The criteria they followed indicates this: To be recognized as “Scripture,” a purported book had to be well-attested as coming from the apostolic circle. Those texts that already had the widest and earliest acceptance in public worship were easily recognized by the time Athanasius drew up the first list of all 27 NT books in 367. Before this even, many of these books were being quoted as normative scripture by Clement of Rome, Origin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others. Of his list, Athanasius said that “holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us” (NPNF2, 4:23). Also in the 4th century Basil of Caesarea instructed, “Believe those things which are written; the things which are not written, seek not…It is a manifest defection from the faith, a proof of arrogance, either to reject anything of what is written, or to introduce anything that is not” (“On the Holy Spirit,” NPNF2, 8:41). Second, although the fathers also acknowledge tradition as a ministerially authoritative interpreter, they consistently yield ultimate obedience to Scripture. For example, Augustine explains that the Nicene Creed is binding because it summarizes the clear teaching of Scripture (On the Nicene Creed: A Sermon to the Catechumens, 1).
6. Roman Catholic scholars acknowledge that the early Christian community in Rome was not unified under a single head. (Paul, for example, reminded Timothy of the gift he was given when the presbytery laid its hands on him in his ordination: 1 Tim 4:14). In fact, in the Roman Catholic-Anglican dialogue the Vatican acknowledged that “the New Testament texts offer no sufficient basis for papal primacy” and that they contain “no explicit record of a transmission of Peter’s leadership” (“Authority in the Church” II, ARCIC, para 2, 6). So one has to accept papal authority exclusively on the basis of subsequent (post-apostolic) claims of the Roman bishop, without scriptural warrant. There is no historical succession from Peter to the bishops of Rome. First, as Jerome observed in the 4th-century, “Before attachment to persons in religion was begun at the instigation of the devil, the churches were governed by the common consultation of the elders,” and Jerome goes so far as to suggest that the introduction of bishops as a separate order above the presbyters was “more from custom than from the truth of an arrangement by the Lord” (cited in the Second Helvetic Confession, Ch 18). Interestingly, even the current pope acknowledges that presbyter and episcipos were used interchangeably in the New Testament and in the earliest churches (Called to Communion, 122-123).
7. Ancient Christian leaders of the East gave special honor to the bishop of Rome, but considered any claim of one bishop’s supremacy to be an act of schism. Even in the West such a privilege was rejected by Gregory the Great in the sixth century. He expressed offense at being addressed by a bishop as “universal pope”: “a word of proud address that I have forbidden….None of my predecessors ever wished to use this profane word ['universal']….But I say it confidently, because whoever calls himself ‘universal bishop’ or wishes to be so called, is in his self-exaltation Antichrist’s precursor, for in his swaggering he sets himself before the rest” (Gregory I, Letters; tr. NPNF 2 ser.XII. i. 75-76; ii. 170, 171, 179, 166, 169, 222, 225).
8. Nevertheless, building on the claims of Roman bishops Leo I and Galsius in the 5th century, later bishops of Rome did claim precisely this “proud address.” Declaring themselves Christ’s replacement on earth, they claimed sovereignty (“plenitude of power”) over the world “to govern the earthly and heavenly kingdoms.” At the Council of Reims (1049) the Latin Church claimed for the pope the title “pontifex universalis“—precisely the title identified by Gregory as identifying one who “in his self-exaltation [is] Antichrist’s precursor….” Is Pope Gregory the Great correct, or are his successors?
9. Papal pretensions contributed to the Great Schism in 1054, when the churches of the East formally excommunicated the Church of Rome, and the pope reacted in kind.
10. The Avignon Papacy (1309-76) relocated the throne to France and was followed by the Western Schism (1378-1417), with three rival popes excommunicating each other and their sees. No less than the current Pope wrote, before his enthronement, “For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form–the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution” (Principles of Catholic Theology, 196).
11. Medieval debates erupted over whether Scripture, popes or councils had the final say. Great theologians like Duns Scotus and Pierre D’Ailly favored sola scriptura. Papalists argued that councils had often erred and contradicted themselves, so you have to have a single voice to arbitrate the infallible truth. Conciliarists had no trouble pointing out historical examples of popes contradicting each other, leading various schisms, and not even troubling to keep their unbelief and reckless immorality private. Only at the Council of Trent was the papalist party officially affirmed in this dispute.
12. Papal claims were only strengthened in reaction to the Reformation, all the way to the promulgation of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870. At that Council, Pope Pius IX could even respond to modern challenges to his authority by declaring, “I am tradition.”
13. Though inspired by God, Scripture cannot be sufficient. It is a dark, obscure, and mysterious book (rendered more so by Rome’s allegorizing exegesis). An infallible canon needs an infallible interpreter. This has been Rome’s argument. The insufficiency of Scripture rests on its lack of clarity. True it is that the Bible is a collection of texts spread across many centuries, brimming with a variety of histories, poetry, doctrines, apocalyptic, and laws. However, wherever it has been translated in the vernacular and disseminated widely, barely literate people have been able to understand its central message. Contrast this with the libraries full of decreetals and encyclicals, councilor decisions and counter-decisions, bulls and promulgations. Any student of church history recognizes that in this case the teacher is often far more obscure than the text. It’s no wonder that Rome defines faith as fides implicita: taking the church’s word for it. For Rome, faith is not trust in Jesus Christ according to the gospel, but yielding assent and obedience unreservedly simply to everything the church teaches as necessary to salvation. There are many hazards associated with embracing an infallible text without an infallible interpreter. However, the alternative is not greater certainty and clarity about the subject matter, but a sacrifice of the intellect and an abandonment of one’s personal responsibility for one’s commitments to the decisions and acts of others.
14. Those of us who remain Reformed must examine the Scriptures and the relevant arguments before concluding that Rome’s claims are not justified and its teaching is at variance with crucial biblical doctrines. A Protestant friend in the midst of being swayed by Rome’s arguments exclaims, “That’s exactly why I can’t be a Protestant anymore. Without an infallible magisterium everyone believes whatever he chooses.” At this point, it’s important to distinguish between a radical individualism (believing whatever one chooses) and a personal commitment in view of one’s ultimate authority. My friend may be under the illusion that his or her decision is different from that, but it’s not. In the very act of making the decision to transfer ultimate authority from Scripture to the magisterium, he or she is weighing various biblical passages and theological arguments. The goal (shifting the burden of responsibility from oneself to the church) is contradicted by the method. At this point, one cannot simply surrender to a Reformed church or a Roman church; they must make a decision after careful personal study. We’re both in the same shoes.
15. Most crucially, Rome’s ambitious claims are tested by its faithfulness to the gospel. If an apostle could pronounce his anathema on anyone—including himself or an angel from heaven—who taught a gospel different from the one he brought to them (Gal 1:8-9), then surely any minister or church body after the apostles is under that threat. First, Paul was not assuming that the true church is beyond the possibility of error. Second, he placed himself under the authority of that Word. Just read the condemnations from the Council of Trent below. Do they square with the clear and obvious teaching of Scripture? If they do not, then the choice to be made is between the infallible writings of the apostles and those after the apostles and since who claim to be the church’s infallible teachers.
As I have pointed out in previous posts, the frustration with the state of contemporary Protestantism is understandable. I feel it every day. Yet those who imagine that they will escape the struggle between the “already” and the “not yet,” the certainty of a promise and the certainty of possession, the infallibility of God’s Word and the fallibility of its appointed teachers, are bound to be disappointed wherever they land. As Calvin counseled on the matter, Scripture alone is sufficient; “better to limp along this path than to dash with all speed outside it.”
LOL Leave it to you man! I truly admire your work and words.
HarleyD:
Nobody is rejecting that it is God’s Grace that saves. That is not the issue. Nowhere does St. Augustine reject Free will and if you are pitting works against Grace, then Grace wins because Grace is the cause of both faith and works of charity.
I agree the Catholic and Orthodox position is accurately stated and is synergism, i.e. man cooperates with Gods Grace and Gods Grace empowers and enlights inner mans will and actions to live out the theological virtures of faith, hope and love.
I agree the Calvinist position is monogersim and thus is different than the Catholic and Orthodox Position and it is also different from the Arminianism position found in other Protestant Doctrines [Methodist and Wesly, most Baptist would be here and Most Anglicans and even some Lutherans].
So the only issue I take with your post is the notion that St. Augustine was a monergist. I think the corpus of his work indicates he was a synergist and strongly believed in the Sacraments as the means of God’s Grace that inabled man to live out the Christian virtures of Faith, Hope and Love.
What St. Augustine was investigating is How God’s Election, Grace and Free will are all reconciled. I think ultimately that is one of those mysteries that God did not reveal definitively to the Church thus on this side of the heaven will never be fully understood so it as never been Dogmatized by the Catholic Church nor the Eastern Orthodox Church and was never Defined in a Council when Rome and the Eastern Orthodox were in full communion before the split in 1054 between Rome and Constantionopile.
I just have to admire the way both of you have managed to avoid the question. Is it uncomfortable to you?
Moses died, for the record I never denied that, and he was buried, for the record I never denied that, and Scripture says no one knows where he is buried.
But, and this a BIG but, Moses appears with Jesus at the Transfiguration along with Elijah.
Now we know that Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot, so Elijah being with God in body is not a surprise. But, Moses?
There are three possible answers.
Moses is a ghost or apparition. But, no God wouldn’t do that.
Moses received a new body, as per metmom, even though we know that it is the body we have now which is resurrected and not a new body. So, does that mean that Moses’ old body is rotted somewhere in a grave and his soul is cavorting around heaven in a new body?
Or, the most likely answer, Moses was assumed into heaven by God and is now there body and soul.
Something Scripture does not say, but which can only be the most reasonable answers given that there are no ghosts and that we do not receive a new body but the same body is resurrected and glorified.
Now, I am sure there will be howls of “Scripture says nothing about Moses being assumed.”
Yet, there he was with Jesus and Elijah.
Okay, then explain without saying he was a ghost or given a new body, two things that make ABSOLUTELY no sense.
Here's the deal: WE DON'T KNOW - Ergo, we should not presume. That includes just making stuff up to explain it.
We have no idea what happened at the transfiguration - whether it is tied to the future... whether the figures present were temporarily transported from the past... whether it was a vision supplied to the disciples simultaneously... We can pull stuff out of our hats all day long, speculating until the cows come home... But that is all it will be, is speculation, because what it is (transfiguration) is not well defined - and if we trust YHWH, it was intentionally left undefined.
It is one of the irksome characteristics of the Roman church to define things it knows nothing about - It seems there is no end of things which are defined from whole cloth, in a similar fashion to this example... Pulling an argument from a few disparate verses and building whole classes of doctrinal clap-trap right out of the air - Whereupon everyone must needs believe it simply because it has been ordained by some hierarchy of stuffy old men.
In almost every case, no proofs are required of them, nor any reliance upon the things which have come before (which all things are required to be derived from). It is just proclaimed as if it were fact.
it is not fact. We don't know. And that's OK.
Nobody is trying to avoid any question. Perhaps it is only a question to you.
Paul gave us much information on the fact that our biological bodies cannot endure trans-physical conditions, and therefore must be replaced with incoruptible bodies to endure heavenly conditions.
There are two OT persons that we know for sure had to have gotten new bodies back in their own times: Enoch and Elijah. It flows from that, that Moses also had to either have been resurrected to biological life, or given his incorruptible body.
The only problem we have is that we do not know which it was. Someday we find out.
If as you surmise, Moses is in the presence of God, then he has his incorruptible body. We are never told that some won’t get their new bodies before the resurrection (’Rapture’). The two prophets that testify during the Great Tribulation apparently will be resurrected biologically, since they will be killed by the beast.
This human body is not capable of displaying that kind of glory and surviving.
1 Corinthians 15:35-56 35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Claiming that Moses was assumed is in direct contradiction to the clear statement of fact recorded in the Word of God.
The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture. I'd think that He knows better what God did with Moses than any mortal who wasn't there.
If you are going to insist on believing that Moses was assumed instead of dying as Scripture clearly and plainly teaches, then you are going to be in a position of choosing to believe a lie someone told you. It's dangerous ground to tread on.
But, see, we are constantly challenged about the Assumption of Mary because it is supposedly unScriptural.
Yet, we have this evidence in Scripture that say it is not.
Elijah was taken into heaven, bodily and without suffering death.
And, now in the New Testament, we have Moses with Jesus and Elijah.
Therefore, Mary being in heaven with her Son, body and soul is not unScriptural.
It is not presumption.
Unless, you can provide an explanation for how Moses appeared with Jesus and Elijah at the Transfiguration.
NO, not a ghost. And NO not a new body, which by the way is totally unScriptural.
So, how? Why?
WHERE in Scripture does it say our bodies will be replaced?
Where does Scripture say that Elijah got a NEW body??????
Resurrection!!!!!!
Resurrection of WHAT?????
The Christian believes in the resurrection of the body, not replacement with a new body.
Same question.
WHERE DOES SCRIPTURE SAY WE GET NEW BODIES??????
What is the resurrection of the body to you?????
>> “The Christian believes in the resurrection of the body, not replacement with a new body.” <<
.
No, Christians do not believe that; catholics may believe that, but I know plenty of them that know that “corruption must put on incorruption.”
1Cr 15:50 ¶ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
1Cr 15:
51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality.
Biological bodies, “flesh,” can only exist in Space-time, not in the realm of God. Our current home is to be destroyed:
2Peter 3:
10] But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
[11] Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
[12] Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
How do you know it wasn't a new body?
Who told you?
How is a new body unscriptural?
This flesh that we're in is tainted with sin. God cannot tolerate the presence of sin, or probably better stated, sin cannot endure the holiness of God.
We HAVE to have a new body for two reasons.... one is the sin factor, so it is a perfect, sinless body which can tolerate being in the presence of a holy God, and the other is that this natural body is very fragile and could not survive being taken up off this earth. A few moments of no oxygen and it's done.
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
The Christian believes in the resurrection of the body, not replacement with a new body.
The resurrection of a sinful body still leaves us with a sinful body, which CANNOT be in the presence of a holy God.
We don't know. And that's OK.
We don't HAVE TO KNOW. We're capable of saying that we don't know but God does and that's good enough. Having to know reveals major control issues that we have to KNOW and explain EVERYTHING.
A person who is a control freak isn't really trusting God. They feel like they have to be in control because they don't trust anyone else to do a good enough job,(even God) or to do it right and that also includes having to be able to explain and understand everything.
It kind of fits with any religion where people feel they have to add works to their faith. They have control over their works and that way they can feel in control of the situation. It can be unnerving to turn total control of one's life over to someone else, even when that someone else is the God of the universe, who knows the beginning from the end and is more capable of making sure everything turns out right than we are with our limited knowledge.
When, in Luke 16, Jesus gave the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he finished it up by saying the object of the parable, the Pharisees, had Moses and the Prophets, meaning, of course, the writings of Moses and the Prophets, Elijah being the outstanding example.
Since no one by Jesus’ own words went to heaven before he himself had appeared in heaven to place his sacrifice on the altar.
“no one” would preclude Moses or Elijah or anyone else going to heaven before Christ's resurrection.
So what or who was there with Jesus in the mountain?
Jesus had taken a chosen few disciples along and this vision of Moses and Elijah, and the spoken heavenly approval of Jesus would strengthen and confirm their faith.
Jesus was the one spoken about in the Law and Prophets. He had all the authority of Moses and Elijah and More.
Moses and Elijah were still dead and awaiting their resurrections from their memorial tombs. So what was seen was not their ghosts (spirits) or their fleshly bodies resurrected but a vision of them depicting the authority they carried.
“WHERE in Scripture does it say our bodies will be replaced?”
Years ago I watched a woman burn to a crisp in a car. Do you suppose she'll have that blackened frame resurrected?
What about the people who have been burned up and their ashes scattered across the globe...They have no bodies to be resurrected...
Rev 1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
Rev 1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
Rev 1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
Rev 1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Rev 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.
John saw Jesus in Heaven...And it liked to have scared him to death...This was not the same figure he was familiar with while he chummed around with Jesus...
1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
John spent 3 years with Jesus and saw him like he was...But John has no idea if Jesus will appear as he was in the past or something completely different...
Jesus may show up with 3 arms and 5 legs...Nobody knows and John didn't know...
Your pope doesn't know...My Pastor doesn't know...And it doesn't matter and it doesn't have to make sense...We don't have to understand it...We just have to believe it...
I rise to stand with them (Big surprise, that, eh?), as IMHO it is not scriptural.
Yet, we have this evidence in Scripture that say it is not.
What you offer is not evidence. Evidence does not require a 'therefore'. it is straightforward. What you have given me is one fact:
That Elijah was taken into heaven bodily without suffering death - That much is true, and without any derivation.
And, now in the New Testament, we have Moses with Jesus and Elijah.
Ok... But as I said before - we don't know what that is. You seem to assume that it is physical (real-world and real-time) - That is not necessarily true. There are a lot of things to consider here. One cannot blithely assume 'assumption'. Without understanding the mechanics of the Transfiguration event, this is an extrapolation, as nearly anything concerning the Transfiguration is going to be.
Therefore, Mary being in heaven with her Son, body and soul is not unScriptural.
'Because Moses, Mary' is an huge extrapolation. There is *nothing* that supports the leap, and more so, because Moses is not definitive - We don't know the facts surrounding Moses beyond the fact that he died, and was buried by YHWH's own hand.
It is not presumption.
Oh, but it is. Most certainly. You seem to begin with your tradition (that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven), which tradition is thready at best, and seek to prove it upon the Scripture, which ultimately is bass-ackwards: START with the Scripture, without assuming the tradition is true, and the whole thing just falls apart - A fantasy at best.
Unless, you can provide an explanation for how Moses appeared with Jesus and Elijah at the Transfiguration.
My originating post gave three, pulled off the top of my head. Give me just a week with any one of them, with a quote or two from the Bible, a statement or two from church fathers, and I will wind up with just as much evidence as you have demonstrated.
Understand me, sister - I do not rise to heckle you. I care not for any tradition - RCC or Protestant - I care about the truth of it, and only the truth. And as I stated previously, we don't know, and therefore, IMHO, our assumptions do damage to the Word.
Col 2:18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Col 2:19 And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
(e-Sword:KJV)
LOL, really now?
Jesus rose from the dead and He had the same body He had when He died, glorified and changed yes, but it still bore the wounds He suffered on the cross.
And, those who rose from their graves when He died, what of them, what of their bodies? Did they disintegrate? Did they go back into their graves? They were seen moving about. Were they seen as rotted corpses? Or did they have their glorified bodies?
*****How is a new body unscriptural?
We HAVE to have a new body for two reasons.... one is the sin factor, so it is a perfect, sinless body which can tolerate being in the presence of a holy God, and the other is that this natural body is very fragile and could not survive being taken up off this earth. A few moments of no oxygen and it’s done. *****
You cannot cite me ONE SINGLE verse in Scripture that supports a new body, one that is different from that we possess now. No, the grace of God which forgives and washes away our sins also glorifies our bodies.
Those who have been cremated still have a body and God is fully capable of bringing that body back together and back to life, just as He raised Adam from the dust of the earth.
*****For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.*****
And the dead will be RAISED. Couldn’t be clearer than that. If our souls do not die, are immortal, then it is only our flesh which is dead and our flesh which will be raised.
******Jesus may show up with 3 arms and 5 legs...Nobody knows and John didn’t know...*****
John also saw Jesus as the Lamb who was slain. And the Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes. So what? Revelation is imagery and symbolism.
According to Scripture, Jesus rose from the dead. The body He had when He rose was the body He walked this earth in and the body which was slain and still bore the wounds of His passion.
1Cor 15
42So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So also it is written, “The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. 48As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. 49Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
50Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55“O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is sown perishable and it is raised imperishable. This is the body, the body which has died, it will be raised imperishable, glorious, powerful. It is raised fully alive in the Holy Spirit, alive in the way that God intended when He created Adam.
Adam and Eve were not created to suffer death and disease, they were not created to die, they died because of their sin.
Jesus lived, died and rose for the forgiveness of that sin and to reconcile the relationship man was meant to have with God. And, God created us humans, not spirits. Our bodies are not just a temporary housing for our souls, else why did God create bodies in the first place? And not just souls? And the bodies God created ARE GOOD. The sin of Adam and Eve came not from their bodies but from their heart and mind which they allowed to be disobedient out of pride. But, it is our bodies which suffer the consequences of sin.
And it is our bodies and our souls which will reap the reward of Jesus’ saving grace.
I repeat. A Christian believes in the resurrection of the body.
What was the purpose of the Transfiguration?
And why was Moses and Elijah there?
Why not just Jesus?
Time/space continuum? Transported from the past? A vision?
Okay, then.
I’ll leave you to your own understanding and assumptions.
As for starting with a belief about Mary and then looking to find support in the Bible, it was natural that the believers would wonder what happened to Mary. We know from the catacombs that in the earliest times she was venerated.
The Church did not just declare one day that she was assumed into heaven and then try to justify that with Scripture.
As is God’s will, the Church has searched the answer and been moved by the Holy Spirit to know that Mary is with her Son.
Moses was assumed instead of dying as Scripture
I NEVER said that Moses didn’t die. You are arguing against a delusion you have created.
We don't HAVE TO KNOW. We're capable of saying that we don't know but God does and that's good enough. Having to know reveals major control issues that we have to KNOW and explain EVERYTHING.
This, dear sister, is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
A person who is a control freak isn't really trusting God. They feel like they have to be in control because they don't trust anyone else to do a good enough job,(even God) or to do it right and that also includes having to be able to explain and understand everything.
Again, preeminently true - And I speak from personal experience! I wrestle with this in my own spirit!
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