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Posted on 07/03/2012 9:31:36 AM PDT by Teófilo
Another nail in the coffin of the foundational Protestant dogma
Sola scriptura is dead, or at least is undead, a zombie still stalking the darkened hallways of Protestantism. Many well-meaning Protestant Christians don’t see the zombie-dogma for what it is; instead, they choose to see it as a being of light. My friend Dave Armstrong has returned to blow the old decrepit sola scriptura monsters one at a time in his latest work, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura.
Let’s recall the definition of the sola scriptura dogma – yes, it is a dogma – as understood by Norman Geisler, a recognized Protestant authority Dave quotes in his work:
By sola scriptura orthodox Protestants mean that Scripture alone is the primary and absolute source of authority, the final court of appeal, for all doctrine and practice (faith and morals)… (p.16)Geisler, and other authorities Dave quotes, further explain that other authorities exist, but that these are of secondary importance. Geisler also defends what he calls the perspicuity of Holy Writ, which means that anyone can understand the basic truths of Scripture: the plain things are the main things and the main things are the plain things, Geisler states. (p.17). As a true analyst, Dave separated the sola scriptura dogma into its constituents claims, found out its contents, examined its individual parts, and studied the structure of sola scriptura as whole. He found them defective and insufficient to expound and explain the full spectrum of Christian claims.
Dave kills the sola scriptura zombie by selecting 100 verses from Scripture contradicting this central Protestant claim. I guess he selected 100 verses because the number “100” gives the reader a sense of exhaustive answer and completion, not because there are only 100 verses that should make all sincere Protestant Christian at least uncomfortable with the teaching. In fact, Dave is the author of another related work, 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura: Is the Bible the Only Infallible Authority?, which is useful if you need another 401 arguments to kill the sola scriptura zombie dead.
100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. is a distillation of the 501 Biblical Arguments… in a more manageable, less overwhelming fashion for the beginning reader. It’s 133 pages in length and divided into two parts. In Part 1 Dave discusses the binding authority of Tradition, as substantiated in Scripture, and in Part 2 he discusses the binding authority of the Church, again from Scripture. The result must be uncontestable to the sincere Protestant Christian as well as eye opening to the full range of deeds and wonders the Incarnation of the Word of God brought to history.Will the sola scriptura zombie really die after Dave’s work? This is a senseless question because the zombie is already dead. It’s kept ambulating by strings pulled from the most diehard of its followers. Those strings must be cut by the individual, sincere Protestant Christian himself. Dave Armstrong’s work, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. not only blows the zombie of sola scriptura away, he also provides the truth-searcher with the scissors to cut off the strings.
Sorry, but your religion doesn't get to decide which idea is Trinitarian or not Trinitarian...
Your religion has no more of the correct understanding of the Trinity than some of the others and I'd say even far less understanding...
Saved from what??? Did you ever read the entire thing in context???
It is not salvation...It is saved from death...
It takes place in a specific period of time...That time is during the Great Tribulation...
Sorry, transubstantiation is strictly Rome’s gig, and a recent one at that. It’s terribly misleading to blur it with “real” or “spiritual” presence. Early “real presence” is indistinguishable from “spiritual presence,” which you must know Rome does not teach. I think Rome would like people to conflate “real” with “corporeal,” but that’s not required by logic, language, or Scripture. God is quite real, and He is a spirit. Said so himself.
As for Luther, he did consubstantiation, which is not transubstantiation and therefore anathema per Trent. There’s no Aristotelian substance swapping. Zip. Nada. As for spiritual presence, the Service of the Didache could work in any Reformed church in the world, and in most Baptist churches. Adoring the host? Not so much.
That has nothing to do with the conversation that was taking place...More distraction to avoid answering questions???
“Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until he has been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice [Matt. 5:23–24]. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, ‘Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations’ [Mal. 1:11, 14]” (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).
Now the sacrifice and the High Priest are the same, the one-time sacrifice of Christ that saved us. It was natural for early Christians to think of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. The fulfillment of prophecy demanded a solemn Christian offering, and the rite itself was wrapped in the sacrificial atmosphere with which our Lord invested the Last Supper. The words of institution, ‘Do this’ (touto poieite),was charged with sacrificial overtones for second-century ears; Justin Martyr said this meant , ‘Offer this.’ .
Justin Martyr in fact that to write a defence to the Emperor saying
Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"
It’s not what I think. The question is, what does God want. He has expressed His will. He keeps lowering the bar. I do believe there are health benefits following the Edenic diet and failing that the Kosher style diet. Circumcision is also beneficial. As a practicing Jew, Jesus ate kosher meat and was circumcised. So what do you think we should do? Follow the example of Jesus and known will of God OR follow the world?
John 6:35 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
And this is confirmed in Paul's Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16) Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ"
and 1 Cor 11:27-29 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. How clear can Paul get? "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.
As our Lutheran brothers hold too "He is present in the bread and the wine in such a way that, by virtue of sacramental union, bread and wine are actually His body and blood."
“well, they are weird to us. To some that is utterly real. The steam-etc. analogy to me has problems. I’m sure you of course see problems in what I believe too :) To me if these were different modes, how can the scene of Christ’s baptism occur? seriously?
I explain it by remembering that as Jesus, He was limited as man. But God is omnipresent.
As for questions? The day I think I fully understand God is the day I tell Him He is in my seat. 10 seconds later, I’ll hear a door slam shut behind me.
And the a guy dressed in red will ask “what are you in for? Take a seat. We’ll be here a while.”
John 6:35 “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
And this is confirmed in Paul's Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16) Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ"
and 1 Cor 11:27-29 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. How clear can Paul get? "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.
As our Lutheran brothers hold too "He is present in the bread and the wine in such a way that, by virtue of sacramental union, bread and wine are actually His body and blood."
Here is a good rejoinder for your post's denial of the Real Presence -- from St. Matthews Lutheran Church, Missouri
During this series on the Sacrament of the Altar, we’ve been following the outline Luther uses in his treatment of this part of the Small Catechism. And so we began by asking, “What is the Sacrament of the Altar?” And we said that the nature of the Sacrament is that it is “the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.”...
the power to do these things comes from the words Christ attaches to the bread and wine that is his body and blood.
And so we believe what Jesus says about his Supper: That it is his true body and blood, the same body and blood he shed for us on the cross. That it is for, and that it actually gives, the forgiveness of sins. And that all this is for me....
But that seems to me to be separating Jesus' two natures
The problems i still see in the steam- etc. Sabellian concept is that John 17 where Jesus is talking to the Father and also in John 14:13 I go to the Father: and whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do: that the Father may be glorified in the Son. and John 14:28 You have heard that I said to you: I go away, and I come unto you. If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father: -- if these were different roles or modes or phases, one role/phase/mode cannot go to be with another or two phases can't send the third.
the good thing to me is that you don't fall into the traps of denying one or the other of the Godhead as not being divine
So does Justin Martyr put error to the Bishop of Rome?
“By the Sacraments we are made partakers of the divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in them.” Gelasius Bishop of Rome, 490AD
Because that’s not transubstantiation, is it.
Or might Martyr’s own analysis in broader context be distinguishable from the literality that was to come under Aristotle’s Aquinas?:
“Now it is evident, that in this prophecy [allusion is made] to the bread which our Christ gave us to eat, in remembrance of His being made flesh for the sake of His believers, for whom also He suffered; and to the cup which He gave us to drink, in remembrance of His own blood, with giving of thanks.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 70).
If it is a remembrance, how is it also his corporeal presence, which is no mere memory, but the real (as in physical) thing?
And what of all these other church fathers? Must we anathematize all these others to save your anachronistic rendering of Martyr?
“Indeed, up to the present time, he has not disdained the water which the Creator made wherewith he washes his people; nor the oil with which he anoints them; nor that union of honey and milk wherewithal he gives them the nourishment of children; nor the bread by which he represents his own proper body, thus requiring in his very sacraments the “beggarly elements” of the Creator.” (Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion, Book 1, Chapter 14).
“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body.” (Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion, Book IV, Chapter 40.)
“For so did God in your own gospel even reveal the sense, when He called His body bread; so that, for the time to come, you may understand that He has given to His body the figure of bread, whose body the prophet of old figuratively turned into bread, the Lord Himself designing to give by and by an interpretation of the mystery.” (Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion, Book III, Chapter 19.)
“But doth the flesh give life? Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.”. . .It seemed unto them hard that He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:” they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, “This is a hard saying.”. . .But He instructed them, and saith unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.” (Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 99, Section 8).
“’Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,’ says Christ, ‘and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.’ This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapter 16, 24).
“But at the present time, after that the proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the resurrection of our Lord, we are not oppressed with the heavy burden of attending even to those signs which we now understand, but our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many, and these at once very easy to perform, most majestic in their significance, and most sacred in the observance; such, for example, as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. And as soon as any one looks upon these observances he knows to what they refer, and so reveres them not in carnal bondage, but in spiritual freedom. Now, as to follow the letter, and to take signs for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error.” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book 3, Chapter 9, 13).
“For since He no more was to take pleasure in bloody sacrifices, or those ordained by Moses in the slaughter of animals of various kinds, and was to give them bread to use as the symbol of His Body, He taught the purity and brightness of such food by saying, ‘And his teeth are white as milk.’ This also another prophet has recorded, where he says, ‘Sacrifice and offering hast thou not required, but a body hast thou prepared for me.’” (Eusebius, Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 8, Chapter 1).
“Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood; that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mayest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him.” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 22, Section 3).
“As then in the case of the Jews, so here also He hath bound up the memorial of the benefit with the mystery, by this again stopping the mouths of heretics. For when they say, Whence is it manifest that Christ was sacrificed? together with the other arguments we stop their mouths from the mysteries also. For if Jesus did not die, of what are the rites the symbols?” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 82, Section 1).
“Orthodoxos. — But our Savior changed the names, and to His body gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol that of his body. So, after calling himself a vine, he spoke of the symbol as blood.
“Eranistes. — True. But I am desirous of knowing the reason of the change of names.
“Orthodoxos. — To them that are initiated in divine things the intention is plain. For be wished the partakers in the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but, by means of the variation of the names, to believe the change wrought of grace. For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace.” (Theodoret, Dialogues, Dialogue 1, PNF 2.03, pp. 326-327).
“Eranistes. — As, then, the symbols of the Lord’s body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after the invocation are changed and become another thing; so the Lord’s body after the assumption is changed into the divine substance.
Orthodoxos. — You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance, figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped as being what they are believed to be. Compare then the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness, for the type must be like the reality.” (Theodoret, Dialogues, Dialogue 2, PNF 2.03, pp. 401-402).
And you believe a pope solves all of this? Like Catholicism has been invariant in its teachings since the first century?
LOL
Here is the relevant passage often foisted by critics of the Christian faith:
"Sacred Scripture, testifying that this Mystery[ie. The Incarnation] began at the start of the blessed Conception, says; 'Wisdom has built a house for itself'(Prov 9:1), rooted in the solidity of the sevenfold Spirit.Pope Gelasius categorically affirms the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
This Wisdom ministers to us the food of the Incarnation of Christ through which we are made sharers of the divine nature. Certainly the sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive are a divine reality, because of which and through which we 'are made sharers of the divine nature'(1 Pt 1:4). Nevertheless the substance or nature of bread and wine does not cease to exist. And certainly the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in the carrying out the Mysteries." Pope Gelasius I[regn A.D. 492-496],Tract on the two natures against Eutchyes & Nestorius.
So why don't you stop reading excerpts and actually read the details?
“On what basis can YOU deny the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?”
As I am sure you know, proving a negative is not easy. Especially when you’re getting dust thrown in your eyes. I already told you that “real” and “spiritual” presence are functionally equivalent, and do have wide currency in the broader fellowship of Christianity. But without further qualification, they simply do not address corporeal presence. God is no less real because he is a spirit, and therefore Christ is no less present because he is with us in spirit.
But you confuse the matter with Luther’s consubstantiation, because your task, as the RC guy, is to defend A) Transubstantiation, and B) Trent’s anathematization of those who reject it.
So which is then? Do you want to discuss memorialism, “true” presence, “real” presence, consubstantiation, or transubstantiation? What’s your pleasure? I feel like a waiter suddenly ....
>> The only true interpretation is what Christ taught the Apostoles
So far, so good
>> and which was handed down from them.
Hold on! That statement is itself an INTERPRETATION — YOUR interpretation (that you use to justify your “infallible” pope).
your posts are filled with this errors, besides the one above, you excerpt Justin Martyr
if you bothered to actually read Justin Martyr you'd read For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus
From the First Apology.
Word of advice - read in entirety, not pick and choose.
Um, I have no problem with the broader context. But I can’t seem to win with y’all, because when I do post long quotes, I get told they are too lengthy and they are not read. Go figure.
Anyway, I see nothing in your extended quote that demonstrates transubstantiation. In fact, I see even more words that suggest an analogical relationship between the elements and the underlying reality. I hope you weren’t counting on gaining much from your extra effort, though it certainly is appreciated. At least you are reading some of what I am saying, and that is notable and helpful.
your posts are filled with this errors, besides the ones above, you excerpt TErtullian
if you bothered to actually read Tertullian you'd read The Docetic Error of Marcion Confuted by the Body and the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He made it His own body, by saying, This is my body, that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body. An empty thing, or phantom, is incapable of a figure. If, however, (as Marcion might say,) He pretended the bread was His body, because He lacked the truth of bodily substance, it follows that He must have given bread for us. It would contribute very well to the support of Marcion's theory of a phantom body, that bread should have been crucified! But why call His body bread, and not rather (some other edible thing, say) a melon, which Marcion must have had in lieu of a heart! He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread, which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed in His blood, Luke 22:20 affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood. In order, however, that you may discover how anciently wine is used as a figure for blood, turn to Isaiah, who asks, Who is this that comes from Edom, from Bosor with garments dyed in red, so glorious in His apparel, in the greatness of his might? Why are your garments red, and your raiment as his who comes from the treading of the full winepress?Tertullian does not explain whether the bread is the symbol of the Body present or absent. The context suggests the former meaning.
Justin Martyr,First Apology,66(A.D. 110-165),in ANF,I:185
"For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour,having been made flesh and blood for our salvation,so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word,and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished,is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh."
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