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 worship—regarded 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 all—Hebrews 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.
By whom?
(1769 seems a bit late...)
So just WHY isn’t MARY a sinner like the rest of us?
Please be as specific as possible.
Beats me: ask HIM!
For the Bible tells me so.
Right after YOU tell me when the newborn or child crosses the sinless/sinner threshold.
Sigh...
Can’t pin point it; eh?
Well if there are churches that want to keep Yashua on the Cross then who am I to disagree?
I think you can get more of the Big Picture by linking Genesis 3:15 (God says to the Serpent: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed...") with Hebrews 10:5 ("Therefore when He came into the world, He said,...a body You have prepared Me.")
God was working through all the generations between Adam/Eve, and Mary, preparing perfect seed so that Our Lord could be born of a perfect mother --- because He had to have a perfect human nature prepared for Him.
Being 21st century persons, we naturally think of this in terms of the DNA, and the various permutations and combinations which come about, generation after generation. The OT Jews didn't know genetics, but their intense interest in genealogy in both the OT and the NT suggests that with each generation, God was preparing the sacred Messianic line.
But why do we bump that back a generation, to the conception of Mary in her mother's womb? Why not simply say that Jesus Himself, upon His conception, must have received those "all-star" genes when the finally-flawless sequencing clicked into place, making Him the perfect human being??
The reason would be that be that there are always interchanges between maternal and fetal blood involving stem cells and proteins which switch different genes on and off. A perfect Jesus carried in the womb of an imperfect mother for nine months, would have been damaged by processes (which science is only now learning about), while He was still in her contaminated, and actively contaminating, womb.
Not only that, but Mary's egg cell (which, when fertilized, became the zygote Jesus) also contains mitchondria, which have their own independent genome, and are involved in other tasks in the cell cycle, such as signaling, differentiation, growth, and death. This is another event pathway by which an imperfect mother would inevitably degrade a perfect offspring.
There's also the largely unexplored question of living cells transmitted to the suckling infant via breast milk. The mother passes on 40 million maternal cells per ounce of breast milk: white blood cells, macrophages and so forth. These are the same cells found in the mother's blood. Again, an imperfect mother would be actively transmitting her corrupt living cells into her perfect Offspring.
Bottom line, modern science can be seen as confirming what our fathers in the faith knew only by divine inspiration: that the "seed of the woman" (unheard of for a woman to be thought to have "seed"!) would need to be "prepared" (as it says in Hebrews) until you had this ---well, as the angel said, Kecharitomene. A woman filled with grace from the beginning, with a perfect human nature --- as perfect as Eve was, before the catastrophe of sin --- who would give birth to the Messiah.
BEFORE YOU GO; OH, WOO WOO, CELLULAR BIOLOGY??
I don't know how much of theology of Jesus' perfect humanity is dependent on the exact biology as I have just described it. Genetics is not dogma. (Remember that I said that!)
But we do know that genetics plays THE defining role in the transmission of a human nature, and it's human nature that needed to be perfect, without all the defects, the darkening of the mind and a damaging of the will, which inclines us to sin, and which we otherwise inherit from Adam and Eve.
Much of it must necessarily remain veiled in mystery. Nevertheless, science provides converging lines of evidence that the mother would have to be perfect in order to conceive, gestate for 9 months, and give birth to an offspring entirely free of defect, and nurture him perfectly through infancy.
As one the most ancient hymns in Christendom says, "[You] who without corruption gave birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, we magnify you." And all this, done for a lowly handmaid, by her Savior! It was a work of God alone. He prepared her body and soul. Then she heard the Word of God, and kept it.
"My soul magnifies the Lord!"
Please be adult enough to admit that Unborns, newborns, and Jesus (Even though fully human) did not commit any sin. Therefore the word "ALL" in this particular case was nothing more than Hyperbole or poetic license on Paul's part.
well you would be disagreeing with one of the most knowledgeable Rabbis of all time, that received direct instruction from Jesus. You are correct not to disagree with Paul or the Bible.
There you go again, declaring Yehova’s word to be a lie.
Every new born child has their father’s sin. Every one of them.
>> “well you would be disagreeing with one of the most knowledgeable Rabbis of all time, that received direct instruction from Jesus. You are correct not to disagree with Paul or the Bible” <<
.
Make up your mind!
You call Paul a rabbi, which he was not, by his own admission, then you say it is correct not to disagree with the Bible, which also says that there are no rabbis.
I was disagreeing with depictions of the Cross with Yashua on it rather than an empty Cross to show He had risen. I guess some people need symbolism. I’ve visited some Catholic churches that had mannequins of saints and Yashua that people worshiped.
Yes, I’ve seen them too, along with bones and teeth of dead humans that they also worship.
But, if it is as the RCC claims; would it make even MORE sense if He’d said, “This is my body, too.”
no need for Jesus to add the word “too”.
Christians have always believed Jesus has two natures, one human, one divine. He is fully God and fully man. When He became man, He emptied Himself of the glory He had with the Father in heaven, but He was always God in the flesh. As such, He is not constrained by time and space. The various miracles He performed prove this fact ( the loaves and fishes, walking on water, raising Lazarus from the dead ) so if we claim to believe Jesus Christ is God Himself, we must believe that He has the power to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood.
Christians further believe that Jesus is able to be in many places at once, even though there is only one Jesus. As Paul tells us in Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” He better be able to be in you and me as well, even though there is only one Lord.
finally, please don’t confuse the types and figures of the OT that point to Jesus Christ ( for example, the passover bread ) with the reality of Jesus Christ and the doing away with types and figures since the reality is here. let’s stay in Colossians 2:17 “these are only a shadow of things to come, but the reality is Christ.
In court yes but what are you talking about?
>> “so if we claim to believe Jesus Christ is God Himself, we must believe that He has the power to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood.” <<
.
But he plainly said that he does not do that!
He said “It is Spirit”
Why would we wish to believe that he does something that he has no reason to do, and also said that he does not do it?
Pagan sorcery pure and simple.
Catholic churches that had mannequins of saints and Yashua that people worshiped.
John 8:44
King James Bible
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
by their fruit you will know them.......
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