Posted on 08/05/2013 10:31:02 AM PDT by Gamecock
Question:
Does the OPC use the crucifix in the church? If not, are they opposed to it?
Answer:
Thank you for your question. The answer is, so far as I know, the crucifix is not used in OPC churches, and here is why:
1.The Second Commandment (Ex. 20:4-6 and Deut. 5:8-10) forbids any picture or image of God, and that would include the Son of God, even as man. At any rate we do not know what Jesus looked like as there is no physical description of him.
2.The crucifix will always end up being an object of worshipregarded as holy. History teaches as much. The bronze serpent Moses made became an object of worship and was not destroyed till King Hezekiah did it (Numbers 21:9; 2 Kings 18:1-5). Roman Catholics have worshipped it, kissed it and held it to have mystical powers.
3.Christ did not remain on the Cross. In the Roman Church Christ is said to be resacrificed each time the Mass is celebrated. This is heresy; he died once for allHebrews 9:25-28.
We in the OPC have learned not to trust our idolatry prone hearts not to do the same as others have in the past. Hence, no crucifixes are used. So, yes, we are opposed to it.
i think the operative text is Gen 2:7. Of course, working from Hebrew to Greek is fun, and there’s always the problem of what Paul means by “natural “ and “spiritual” in I Cor 15.
But the idea of the soul as the “aliveness” of a living body is compelling to me.
"Ephesians 5:23
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body."
So I don't think you can say that Jesus came to save the soul but not the body.
Second, you can't say that because Jesus said "flesh and bone," he did not also have blood. You can't prove that by mere omission in the verse you quoted. Adam said of Eve, "This one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," but he didn't mean she had no blood!
Third, Paul says "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom 8:11)
He said giving live to your mortal body: he didn't say "Making a different, replacement body for your soul to live in." I go back to what St. Paul said about the natural body being the seed which is sown:
1 Corinthians 15:44
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
This is why we have reverence for even the dead body of a Christian . We treat the body with respect, because it doesn't just have a past: it also has a future.
Yes. I can't say I understand it (I hate giving the impression that I'm in lecture mode when my reasoning power is as baffled as anybody's). All I have is what all of us believed through he centuries, based on these Scriptures we all share.
It's hard to pin down the term Evangelical. You can look at the Southern Baptist wing of the Evangelical church and have a pretty good idea what they believe on most topics. When you move into the megachurch or independent churches it is much harder to figure out. Same goes for Pentecostals. In Reformed and Lutheran circles we hear about the resurrection of the body when we affirm the Apostle's Creed, but no telling how many people actually think about what they are actually saying they believe.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says this:
Q. 37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united in Christ, do rest in their graves, till the resurrection.
Q. 38. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?
A. At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.
And yes, Al Mohler is awesome. Most of his material is well thought out. He is certainly the type of leader churches in the US need today.
That is what Paul was up against during his work in Greece.
True. Full-out dualism: that’s what I was thinking it was. It is desperately uncomfortable with Christ’s real bodily Incarnation (”the Word was made Flesh”), and His real bodily death, AND His real bodily resurrection. This philosophy wants to brush off bodily reality a.s.a.p., as if God had never called it “good” or did not have the power or the inclination to save it.
In English, we generally reserve the word "wine" to refer to alcoholic beverage wine. But that constraint is not so in Biblical Hebrew/Aramaic or Greek. There the hebrew word "yayin" = wine (sound it out) refers to pressed grape juice, either fermented or unfermented. The same is so for the Greek word oinos = wine (sounds alike) which could be either.
So when you read of wine in the Bible, you have to look at the context to see if it refers to alcoholic wine. If you can't tell from context, make no assumptions. It could be either.
At Cana, it is difficult to imagine that Jesus would attend an event that would turn out to be a drunken party. Nor would one think that He would hold this out to his disciples to be one which He could approve.
In this case, the banquet ran out of the social beverage, and His mother asked Him to do something about it. Now get this: He asked the servants to fill up some stone containers with water. They were not ceramic pots. Jews used the stone jars for water, because in their rituals, water that was stored in stone would be considered "living water," that is, like rain water or freshly drawn stream waster. Well water was not "living water"--but if it was placed in stone containers, it could then be considered "living water" and fit for religious use. Normally drinking water would be stored in ceramic pots, inasmuch as they were plentiful as compared to vessels created from stone, and used for special purposes.
Therefore, when Jesus transformed this water into grape juice, the wine would then be OK if it was as new wine, unfermented. If he had made it alcoholic wine, it would be in religious vessels not ever used for this purpose!
Now let me tell you this: God never gave us alcoholic drink as a gift. Normally, fresh grape juice (or apple juice or other fruit juice) when left open to the air will quickly start to ferment, and open to the air, it will soon turn to vinegar and taste bad. Wine can only be made by placing the juice in a closed, sealable container, not letting any air come in, and fermenting the juice anaerobically. Thus it is an invention of man, not a process that God ever tells us to conduct. And its product, alcoholic beverage, is a tool of Satan's children, wordlings, and accrues to his purposes, not God's. Read through Proverbs, and see what the Holy Ghost has to say about alcoholic beverages.
As a further note, "strong drink" in the Bible is not brandy or whiskey or cognac. It is beer or mead (made from honey) or some such non-grape or non-fruit fermentations. Egyptians drank a lot of beer, and I suppose Israelites lerned of it in their 430-year stay there. Distillation of alcohol was not discovered until about AD 700-800, and thus whiskey/rum/cognac type fluids were not a part of the Biblical history. Again. distillationof drink products is a devilish man-made invention, and its products are certainly not gifts from God.
Who is it that put it in your head that alcoholic beverages are gifts from God???
Thank you for documenting just how intellectually obtuse you really are for even more people.
I have seen members of the masonic lodges that do.
Psalm 104 tells us that wine is a gift from God:
“He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.” Psalm 104:14-15; 24 KJV
The praise given of the wine Yeshua made made it plain that it was quality fermented wine.
These people that deny the wine are not using their heads.
Grape juice without refrigeration begins to become wine in about three or four days.
Refrigerators came 1900 years after Yeshua’s ascencion.
Fermented wine was praised in Torah.
I have a strong position on that because God got my attention, and showed me through the Bible and wise Scriptural counselors just how adamant He is about the issue.
Why do you think Satan's servants tried to get him seen as a wine-bibber. He was not, but in the course of reaching to people who desperately needed salvation, he attended events where alcoholic beverages were served.
But that doesn't say he was a social drinker of any kind, nor that He would make himself an example of it, or pop a cap with buddies. Only a fool would try to defend alcohol as a beverage ingredient, but there are many such fools. What I learned well is:
Alcohol is not your friend, and a tee-totaller is not your enemy.
Bruce Lackey was neither a logical, nor honest man.
Hundreds of scriptural holes can be punched in all of his arguments, because he twists the meaning of scripture to his own purpose.
Probably, but booze just helps you get there faster.
I hope you are doing better now.
The separation and divorce were over 40 years ago. I put my son's body in the ground on his 27tth birthday, almost exactly 28 years ago, August 7, 1985. I dream of them almost every week now. Used to be every night.
Doing better? It's like the holes in the door.
You sound like you are.
One day at a time. With the Lord, who watches over me better than He does with the sparrows. Every hair numbered, for my new body, I guess. This one is wearing out. The price of sin in the world. It gives us a second chance, if we make the right decision now.
I did, but you didn't take it seriously. No guts, no glory.
What about ‘old skins’?
They are mentioned in three of the Gospels.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’ (Luke 5:36-39)
Just WHY is the old better?
And WHY do the skins burst if reused?
HMMMmmm...
Pete?
ACTS 10
13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spoke unto him again the second time, What God has cleansed, that call not common.
It took 3 times before Peter got the message...
You left out 'getting drunk on'.
Ever seen somebody impaled on something? Unless it goes in rather raggedly, leaving a large hole, the nail would essentially fill the hole, with coagulation filling in around the edges for the most part. Crucifixions normally kept the individual alive for days, not hours.
I understand your quip - I am guilty of suchlike myself on occasion. But I say Baa to your post; you should feel sheepish and come home wagging your tail behind you.
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