How Christians Will Know They Can Join Hands With Rome

The Cripplegate, New Generation of Non-Conformists ^ | October 29, 2014 | Eric Davis, Pastor since 2008 of Cornerstone Church, Jackson Hole, WY

[RnMomof7]

With Reformation Day coming up, this is a good time to recall why the Reformers departed from Roman Catholicism. In our day especially, it seems that many Christians have history-amnesia when it comes to the importance of what God did through the Reformers. During the Reformation, great confusion existed regarding what was, and was not, the true church of Christ. Rome had asserted itself as the true church for centuries, and continues to do so today. However, as the Reformers recognized then, Christians must follow in step today by recalling that joining hands with Rome is a departure from Christ.

To be clear, this is not to say that everyone who sits in a Roman Catholic church is not a Christian. What it is saying is that several changes must occur before Roman Catholicism, by the book, can be considered biblical Christianity. And the men and women of the Reformation understood this, hence their necessary break with Rome. In their case, and ours, joining Christ necessitates breaking with Rome and coming under Christ means coming out from under Rome.

Christians will know that it is time to join hands with Rome when it does the following:

1. Renounce the Papacy.

[caww]

The reformers were burned at the stake as an example of the brutality , because they did not believe that the sacrament offered by the Roman Catholic Church was the real body and blood of Christ Jesus.....which Romes doctrine of the real presence strikes 'at the very root of the Gospel' of Christ's "finsihed" work.... and is the very pillar ad keeper f the Papacy/Priesthood.

Heb 9:2426 Tells us..." For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf....... Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world....... But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

[Old Yeller]

Former Roman Catholic myself. Praise the Lord. I have nothing against them, I just don’t agree with them.

Ditto.

[metmom]

Jesus said that all authority was given to HIM.

There is no where in Scripture where He set men as authorities to make decisions for His body to run people’s lives for them.

We all answer to Christ individually.

He did indeed give us teachers and preachers, along with other gifts of the Spirit for the building up of the body, but not as a top down authoritarian governing structure.

When I first heard the gospel and heard people talking about going directly to Jesus without any intermediaries, it was beyond my comprehension that someone could or would actually do that.

I didn’t think that God would be interested in me or willing to hear me or have that level of concern for me. It left me with a feeling of being very vulnerable and in an actually dangerous place, fearing what direct contact with God would do to me. As with the Catholics on this board, I thought it was incredibly presumptuous for someone, anyone, to do something like that.

I also saw them as thinking that they thought pretty highly of themselves that God would accept them and that they felt the boldness to go directly to God. My thoughts were, *Just who do they think they are? They must think they’re pretty special. How arrogant to think that they’re so good or so much better than everyone else.*

To me it looked like a lot of pride and arrogance.

But that’s because of the way I had been raised and what I had been taught, that is that a priest is necessary to go between me and God.

However, once you are brought to the end of yourself and you cry out to God in absolute desperation and see yourself as you really are, you find out that God will meet you there and begin the work of transformation in you, conforming you into the image of His beloved Son.

And believe it or not, it is far easier to go to God through a priest than to do it one on one with Him yourself.

Going through a priest can give you a sense of feeling insulated from God.

Going one on one, leaves you exposed to the God who sees and knows everything last little thing about you. There is no hiding there. You can fool a priest and even lie to him, but you can’t with God.

[metmom]

The reformers were burned at the stake as an example of the brutality , because they did not believe that the sacrament offered by the Roman Catholic Church was the real body and blood of Christ Jesus.....which Romes doctrine of the real presence strikes 'at the very root of the Gospel' of Christ's "finsihed" work.... and is the very pillar ad keeper f the Papacy/Priesthood.

I wonder what the chapter and verse supporting that is....

[Old Yeller]

And why so many are coming back to the Catholic Church.

End times apostasy.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

I too am a former Catholic. My impetus to move away from the church was the realization that I really don’t need to confess my sins to a middle man when I can go directly to the boss any time.

Unfortunately we are, as God tells us repeatedly through His Word, like sheep. We prefer to follow a leader that has skin on him, so we follow priests and bishops and preachers and elders rather than the Holy Spirit. Protestants are just as guilty of this as Catholics, we just do it on a local level since we have no pope. We all must renounce the following of a person rather than the living Christ - thus we become true Christians.

1 Corinthians 1:10-13 (NIV):

10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,[a] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas[b]”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

[Old Yeller]

You are a Catholic once baptized a Catholic. The indelible mark is still on your soul. Many like you have come back. Sit down with a priest and get your questions answered.

Great! Then us ex-Catholics can comment in the Catholic caucuses. I'd ask the priest why so many of them like little boys.

[caww]

....”The Catholic Church is not simply another denomination”....

It became that when it departed from the clear teachings of Jesus Christ and adherence to the scriptures. It could od no other than continue that road when the true believers left it’s pagan beliefs and practices it had incorporated into the church...and further persecuted and killed those who did not agree with their “New Doctrines”.

Basically it became “something else” other than the true church...which is today All believers who have given themselves to Jesus and accpeted his finsihed work.

Catholicism still today “increases” it’s practices that oppose God’s clear teachings....it will continue to do so as we see Francis continue with aligning the church with the Global Agenda....and “carry it’s water” to the massses.

[usconservative]

In our day especially, it seems that many Christians have history-amnesia when it comes to the importance of what God did through the Reformers.

As a Christian, I'm more interested in what The Lord did through his Son, Jesus Christ which was to eliminate the artificial, man-made religious barriers to having a direct relationship with Him.

Jesus Christ pierced the veil that separated us from having a direct, personal relationship with The Lord. Any religion or movement that puts itself between God and his children, and His children's ability to have a direct, personal relationship with Him is not of the Bible.

Period.

[metmom]

Great! Then us ex-Catholics can comment in the Catholic caucuses.

Let me know where that gets you.

I tried it once.

I can tell you about it sometime.

[usconservative]

Great! Then us ex-Catholics can comment in the Catholic caucuses.

Game, set match. Advice: the cult-like statements of "once marked a Catholic, all a Catholic" are laughable and to be ignored.

[metmom]

Preach it, brother..... or sister, as the case may be.

[Old Yeller]

Yes, the 30,000+ denominations

Name them. You can even copy/paste.

[ravenwolf]

My NUMBERS 28: trumps your Exodus 20!

---

The Sabbath day is still a day of rest because that is what the fourth commandment plainly says.

But the point I was making is that it was an historical event, it can not be changed.

I believe the Sabbath was made for man and we can rest or worship on our own time.

If we have to try to change the Sabbath to the first day of the week in order to justify our Sunday worship services then we are no different than the pagans.

In fact a whole lot more dishonest.

If we believe that the law of the Sabbath has been done away with why try to change it to Sunday?

That makes the so called Sunday Sabbath keepers twice the hypocrites as the seventh day Sabbath keepers.

[usconservative]

Former Roman Catholic myself. Praise the Lord. I have nothing against them, I just don’t agree with them.

Welcome to the truth.

[usconservative]

It is Jesus Christ himself who proclaimed that Simon is Peter, the Rock, on which he will build his church.

A common and I'd argue deliberate distortion of what the Bible actually says. Continue reading.

Christ's statement did not build his church on Peter -- Christ's church is built on the truth that Peter proclaimed which is that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Catholics always -- ALWAYS -- get this wrong, and claim it as justification for the "one true church."

[Petrosius]

Scripture is what is to be used to correct error.

But what if the dispute is over what Scripture itself means? If you look over the disputes between Catholics and Protestants you will find that it is the very meaning of Scripture that is in dispute.

One of which is that the enemy is always going to be trying to introduce false teachings. He did from the very inception of the church.

Precisely so. That is why our Lord established an authoritative hierarchy in his church to deal with this.

For this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done and appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious. For a bishop as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents. For there are also many rebels, idle talkers and deceivers, especially the Jewish Christians. It is imperative to silence them, as they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what they should not. (Titus 1:5-11)

Notice that it is the bishop, not reference to Scripture, that is to correct error. Indeed, the establishment of the church with "presbyters in every town" preceded the completion of the New Testament.

God does not demand doctrinal unity for salvation. Churches do that.

Then why do Protestants divide the church over doctrine?

If someone is wrong in an area, it’s God’s primary responsibility to correct that whether He uses simply reading Scripture and seeing it for yourself, or another person to do the correcting.

Paul said that it was the bishop's responsibility.

There’s a world of difference between knowing about Christ and knowing Christ. For all the derision that the phrase *personal relationship with Christ* receives, it gets down to that. Men don’t need to be perfect for God to be able to deal with them as sons. They just need to be forgiven, and that forgiveness is granted strictly by grace on the part of God.

The Catholic Church agrees with every word here.

Secondly, [sola scriptura] is not a denial of the Church’s authority to teach God’s truth.

But how do we recognize the Church that exercises this authority. If it is just those fellow Christians who agree with me then the Church has no real authority other than what I, not God, grants it.

Thirdly, it is not a denial that God’s Word has been spoken. Apostolic preaching was authoritative in and of itself. Yet, the Apostles proved their message from Scripture.

Not just the Apostles but also the presbyters who they associated with themselves.

Then the apostles and presbyters, in agreement with the whole church, decided to choose representatives and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. The ones chosen were Judas, who was called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers. This is the letter delivered by them: “The apostles and the presbyters, your brothers, to the brothers in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia of Gentile origin: greetings. Since we have heard that some of our number [who went out] without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings and disturbed your peace of mind, we have with one accord decided to choose representatives and to send them to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we are sending Judas and Silas who will also convey this same message by word of mouth: ‘It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.’” (Acts 15:22-29)

Note that:

1) individual Christians nor even the local church at Antioch did not decide the disputed question by themselves but sent Paul, Barnabas and some others to the Apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem (Paul himself appealing to leadership in Jerusalem),

2) the Apostles had already associated presbyters with themselves in the governance of the church,

3) the peace of the church was disturbed by those preaching without a mandate from the Apostles and presbyters, and

3) they evoked the authority of the Holy Spirit directly and not by merely referring to Scripture. Scripture itself records that the Apostles and presbyters exercised the authority of the Holy Spirit.

Thus the model we have from Scripture for when a dispute arises is not for each person or each congregation to refer to Scripture alone but by submitting the dispute to the Church which speaks with the authority of the Holy Spirit itself. In this way the truth is guarded by the Holy Spirit and the unity that Jesus prayed for is maintained.

The Bible claims to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith for the Christian Church.

Not true. Nowhere is this claim to be found in the Bible.

[Salvation]

Are you a baptized Catholic too?

[usconservative]

Preach it, brother..... or sister, as the case may be.

Brother, in my case. I see you've been holding your own ground very well. Keep up the great work. We win in the end. It's already written.

[Salvation]

You cannot judge all priests by the mistakes of a few. Are you aware that more molestations come from family members and from non-Catholic ministers than from priests?