Posted on 12/10/2014 6:32:20 AM PST by marshmallow
"Christian unity" is one of those terms that stir up a whole spectrum of—sometimes emotional—opinions.
On the one hand, we know that Jesus prayed to the Father concerning future believers "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you" (John 17:21a, NIV).
On the other hand, charismatics know it is almost pointless to discuss the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12, 14) with Baptists or most anyone else from a mainline denomination. And Protestants of just about any stripe get riled up when they hear Catholics talking about papal infallibility or their adoration of the Virgin Mary.
It's on this latter point that Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and successful author, has waded into a hornet's nest of controversy by telling a Catholic News Service interviewer that Protestants and Catholics "have far more in common than what divides us" and that Catholics do not "worship Mary like she's another god."
Regarding Warren's view that Catholics do not worship Mary, Matt Slick, writing on the website of the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry, goes into great detail with material from Roman Catholic sources that say Mary is "the all holy one," is to be prayed to, worshipped, that she "brings us the gifts of eternal life" and she "made atonement for the sins of man."
If that's not putting her in the place of Christ as a god-like figure to be worshipped, then what is it?
"We believe in Trinity, the Bible, the resurrection, and that salvation is through Jesus Christ. These are the big issues," Warren says. "But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we're on the same team."
To Warren's point about being on the same team, Slick.....
(Excerpt) Read more at charismanews.com ...
There's not a single verse of Scripture that states that.
And being saved, does not mean automatically free from sin.
You can be saved and still sin. It's part of being human.
So since, Mary could (allegedly) be conceived sinless in the womb of a sinful mother and (allegedly) remain sinless for the rest of her life, although still in contact with her sinful mother for the entire 9 months of gestation, then why couldn't it have happened for Jesus being born of a sinful mother.
The same way God protected Mary would have worked to protect Jesus, if indeed the sin nature is absorbed by contact or osmosis.
But it's not. It comes from the father.
So there is no requirement for Mary to be sinless in order to carry Jesus.
That's probably why God had it written down in Scripture for us.
So that men could not corrupt it. It would always be there for people to refer back to.
There's no where in Scripture where Scripture is stated to be the only source of teaching, for that matter. Oh well.........
Think about the early Church.....there was no New Testament. No book to turn to when disputes arose as they invariably did. It had yet to be written....and certainly not compiled or canonized. The Church did just fine because the Church gave us Scripture and not vice versa. Ergo the Church could grow and function without it.
Read Acts. What happened when Paul and Barnabas got into an argument in Antioch about circumcision?? They couldn't say....."well let's see what the Bible says about this!". They couldn't! No, Instead, Acts tells us that they returned to Jerusalem to consult with the "apostles and ancients" and it was in fact Peter who rose up to give the decisive oration.
That's the model! It was the "apostles and ancients" who resolved these issues, not Scripture.
It's the same today. There is nothing in Scripture about the morality of artificial contraception! There must be a living, breathing Magisterium, connected to the Apostles to decide on these matters.
But that's not what sola Scriptura means.
Nobody ever claimed that it is the only source of teaching.
It's the only source of truth and it is authoritative by its nature as the God breathed, Holy spirit inspired word of God.
2 Timothy 3:16-17All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Think about the early Church.....there was no New Testament. No book to turn to when disputes arose as they invariably did. It had yet to be written....and certainly not compiled or canonized. The Church did just fine because the Church gave us Scripture and not vice versa. Ergo the Church could grow and function without it.
Wrong. It did fine because they already had Scripture in the OT, which Jesus Himself validated in His use of it and His calling it Scripture.
And the HOLY SPIRIT gave us Scripture, not the Catholic church.
And no, the church cannot do fine without Scripture. It WILL go into error without it as an anchor.
It was NOT Peter. It was James.
It's the same today. There is nothing in Scripture about the morality of artificial contraception! There must be a living, breathing Magisterium, connected to the Apostles to decide on these matters.
Ah, the old contraception issue.
Whenever Catholics are taking a beating, they resort to that.
So if Scripture is silent on artificial contraception, then on what basis did the magisterium decide that it was wrong?
What an extraordinary denial--- are you saying that the texts do not show the Holy Spirit preparing them prenatally for their role? Or are you saying they rejected the Hoily Spirit and did not receive Him?
(Jeremiah) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."And this next one is wonderful, a regular cascade of the Holy Spirit in Luke 1!!(Isaiah) "The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me."
(John the Baptist) When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the baby leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
In a loud voice she exclaimed:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
But why am I so favored,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Look at what's happening here! Mary is carrying Christ the Lord God, Elizabeth calls her "mother of my Lord" (SHE knew Mary was the mother, and she knew Jesus was God!) John the Fetus does his first prophetic work, dancing before the Lord --- the Holy Spirit is caroming through this whole scene -- and eventually even Zechariah's overwhelmed:
" His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied..."It's absolutely wonderful. The first chapter of Luke is like a mini-Gospel of the Holy Spirit in itself. Just exquisite.And the child grew and became strong in Spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.
And later Paul explains (Romans 8:30)
"And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."That applies to all these wonderful gift of grace, but pre-eminently to Mary, since her SOUL magnifies the Lord.
Who does this setting apart of human beings and appointing them prophets? Is it not the Holy Spirit?
I nowhere said that they ALL remained free from sin. You say, "Isaiah was man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips (Is. 6). Sinless because he was a prophet selected before birth? What happened along the way?"
Well, yes he was a man of unclean lips. What happened to him was, he chose to commit personal sin. The same thing that happened when Adam and Eve, though at first sinless, chose to commit sin. Just because a person is without sin ab initio, (like Adam and Eve) does not in itself mean they remained sinless forever. Isaiah was a sinner because he sinned.
You say,
"Jesus put Mary in a very utilitarian perspective, noting that the crowd to which He spoke was more His mother than Mary, at that moment. Actually, according to Jesus, anyone who did His will was his mother (Matt. 12:46ff)."
That is a wonderful passage from Matthew, but it is the furthest thing from "utilitarian" that it could possibly be. It's the exact opposite. He says that His mother is whoever will hear with word of God and keep it. And Mary was the first to do that: a spiritual act, even before the physical conception. (Didn't the Angel call her by that revealed, unique name, Kecharitomene, before she even conceived her Divine Son?) SHE heard the word of God. SHE kept it. She got pregnant!
Mary was the first disciple, because she was the first to accept Jesus Christ as her personal Savior (Luke 1:47.)
Good enough for me.
It was Peter who gave the address at the Council of Jerusalem. The first Council of the Catholic Church.
James spoke to dietary rules. He didn’t address the issue about which Peter was talking.
And here's what I want to know: do you hold that God could just as easily have allowed Mary to be conceived in original sin, and still preserved Jesus from becoming contaminated by the corruption of her sinful nature? So that when He took up His human nature, His flesh and blood and DNA and all the rest, from her, He in is human nature was still preserved from all stain of sin?
I think that's a respectable belief, by the way. I just don't know if it's your belief.
Yes. Although I would word it different.
It wasn't preserved from sin. He had none.
The sin nature comes through the father, not the mother.
Also, what Catholics claim God did for Mary in conception, having been carried by a sinful mother and yet remaining free from the stain of sin, He could have done for Jesus, being carried by a sinful mother.
It's totally inconsistent to argue that Mary had to be free from sin in order to carry Jesus and have Him be free from sin, and yet claim that very thing for Mary.
If God could do it for Mary, a mere human, then He could certainly do it for His own son. If He couldn't do it for His son, then He couldn't do it for Mary.
What it does is portray Jesus as being weaker than Mary in that He could not have been born sinless or protected from sin, being born of a sinful mother, but yet Mary could.
Sin is not transferred by touch or osmosis. It cannot be absorbed. The sin nature is inherent in us as human beings. We sin because we're sinners.
Romans 5:12-13 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
Romans 5:15-19 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
And yes, Eve did sin when she ate. But sin was not counted until ADAM ate. It was after he ate, too, that the eyes of both of them were opened and sin entered the world.
I honestly don't know what the outcome would have been had Adam refused to eat and exercised his authority in the situation.
There is OT Scripture that holds the man responsible to a degree for vows made by his wife or daughter.
He can release them from those vows if he chooses. If he doesn't, they are then bound by them.
Be that as it may, Adam did eat and we are here stuck with dealing with the consequences of that action.
Bill Clinton said he didn't have sex with monica either....just redefine the terms to mean what you want.
I'd say that most of the non-Catholics here do NOT identify as Protestant.
Those denominations which have been historically labeled as Protestant have become so liberal and strayed so far from Scriptural teachings that they can hardly be called churches any more. They have abandoned the authority of Scripture, even to the point of claiming they are fables or mythology. They don't recognize or accept the authority of Scripture, so as a whole, we do not affiliate or associate with them. That is primarily the mainline Protestant denominations.
What is most often labeled as Evangelical is what most of the Bible believing churches identify as and that includes non-denominational churches.
One branch I do not identify with is Pentecostalism. There are some things about it that have been good for the church, and primarily that is more freedom in worship as far as people feeling free to raise their hands if they feel like it.
However, there is way to much that is either off base or out and out wrong. I have *NO* use at all for televangelists.
There are a few evangelists, like Billy Graham, who have integrity and preach a solid message, but the rest, they're just a bunch of money grubbing shysters, IMO.
The Catholic Church interprets the words of Jesus literally when he said, "This is my body."
Protestants have a different interpretation.
Catholic church admits immaculate conception cannot be found in Scripture.
This information is obtained from the Catholic Encycolpedia Online. It advertises itself as the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes. http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6056
No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture.
That in and of itself tells us all we need to know about this false doctrine that that catholic church continues to promulgate. The catholic church admits this false teaching cannot be found in Scripture. Nor can it be supported from Scripture. But that doesn't stop them from plowing ahead. The deception goes even deeper.
But the first scriptural passage which contains the promise of the redemption, mentions also the Mother of the Redeemer.
[The sentence against the first parents was accompanied by the Earliest Gospel ( Proto-evangelium ), which put enmity between the serpent and the woman : "and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and her seed; she (he) shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her (his) heel" ( Genesis 3:15 ). The translation "she" of the Vulgate is interpretative; it originated after the fourth century, and cannot be defended critically.
Can the catholic appeal to "tradition"?
From this summary it appears that the belief in Mary's immunity from sin in her conception was prevalent amongst the Fathers, especially those of the Greek Church. The rhetorical character, however, of many of these and similar passages prevents us from laying too much stress on them, and interpreting them in a strictly literal sense. The Greek Fathers never formally or explicitly discussed the question of the Immaculate Conception.
The catholic church admits no scriptural support for this false teaching nor can they appeal to "tradition"
What is left for the catholic to appeal to? Very little of substance.
Proof from reason is all that's left. I will add, man's reason.
So it comes down to feelings and wouldn't it be a nice kind of thing for God to do for Mary. While a nice sentiment it doesn't meet the Biblical test for proof as attested to by the catholic church.
We can wish and say we hope there isn't a Hell....but we know there is as the Bible teaches this. We can wish and hope that none would ever wind up in Hell, but we know those who do not have faith in Christ will based on the Bible.
Too many false doctrines have been built upon man's reasoning and that's all that's left to the catholic regarding the immaculate conception.
This shows us what the false teaching of the immaculate conception is predicated upon.
It is not based on Scripture.
It is not to be based upon "tradition".
It is based on a poor translation that cannot, by the catholic church's own admission, be defended.
It comes down to man's reason which we know if subject to error.
I pray our catholic friends to examine this teaching critically and come out of the false teaching of the catholic church.
You said it perfectly. I agree exactly.
I was raised a Roman Catholic and stopped going after my mother died (because my dad didn’t go to any church). Then I became a born-again Christian, and have thereafter attended various churches (or none), denominational & non-denominational.
I believe what the Scriptures say and if what ‘man’ says contradicts what the Word says, then there’s a problem with either the pastor or the denomination (if it’s coming down as a directive therefrom).
Period.
I agree with you that logically, there was no necessity for Mary to be free from sin, in order for Jesus to be likewise free, even though from her He derived His human nature. I realize that has been offered by some Catholics as a necessary reason for the Immaculate Conception, but I do not think it's necessary (and I don't think the Church has an official dogma that says it's necessary.)
I'm not sure what to make of the "sin is transmitted by the male parent" argument.
They new reproductive technology is producing offspring in animals and will soon produce offspring in humans, that have no biological father.
I'm not just talking about cloning: that has been around since Dolly the Sheep 20 years ago. I'm talking about the more recent stuff with mitochondrial DNA transfers resulting in an offspring with 3 genetic parents: a man, a woman, and another woman who supplies the mitochondria. This has rapidly led to research about plucking out some haploid egg DNA and joining it to a second ovum, to fertilize it.
I assume we will live to see babies that are genetically fatherless. They're on the verge of it. At first it will be touted as therapeutic somehow. Later it'll be something appealing to lesbians, I suppose: two-female-genetic-parent babies.
It seems implausible that those babies would be free from the effects of Original Sin and would be as perfect in their natures as Adam and Eve were in Eden.
So (I'm groping here) I think that the weakness and blight of our nature results simply from our having been transmitted a human nature from human parents. However the cytotechnology of that may be. Otherwise, what we need is not a Savior, but eugenics at the molecular level.
Your thoughts?
Simply making the claim that something is not correct doesn't make it incorrect.
Mary is simply revered as the Blessed Mother, the one woman chosen. Not as a god or goddess.
Two things: you ascribed a title to Mary not found in the Bible....Blessed Mother. She is blessed among women.
If you read the catechism of the catholic church you'll find she does have super powers.
by your, and the catholic churches, definition she's a demigod.
No, I'm hearing it from the protestants right here on this thread.
5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.
8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
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